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Biennial Report of the State Board of Charities and Public Welfare, December 1, 1920 to June 30, 1922:
Electronic Edition.North Carolina State Board of Charities and Public WelfareFunding from the Institute for Museum and Library Services
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Biennial Report of the North Carolina State Board of Charities and Public Welfare, 1920-1922 Biennial Report of the State Board of Charities and Public Welfare, December 1, 1920 to June 30, 1922North Carolina State Board of Charities and Public WelfareMrs. Kate Burr Johnson, Commisioner 103 p.RaleighThe Board[1922]Call number C360 N87p 1920-1922 copy 2 (North Carolina Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)

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BIENNIAL REPORT OF The State Board of Charities and Public Welfare December 1, 1920 TO June 30, 1922 MRS. KATE BURR JOHNSON Commissioner
CONSTITUTIONAL MANDATE
[CONSTITUTION OF NORTH CAROLINA, ART. 11, SEC. 7.]

Beneficent provision for the poor, the unfortunate and orphan, being one of the first duties of a civilized and Christian State, the General Assembly shall, at its first session, appoint and define the duties of a Board of Public Charities, to whom it shall be entrusted the supervision of all charitable and penal State institutions, and who shall annually report to the Governor upon their condition, with suggestions for their improvement.

SIR:—I have the honor of handing you herewith the report of the State Board of Charities and Public Welfare from December, 1920, to June 30, 1922. This report represents an unusual amount of hard and careful work on the part of the executive staff, ably directed by the Commissioner.

Many of the facts presented in this report are new to most of the people of North Carolina; some of them are startling; most of them unpleasant. Reference to such extreme conditions is not evidence that any one desires to be cruel or callous. These conditions are the out-growth of customs for which all of us are more or less responsible. As members of the State and of society we have, somehow, permitted these things to exist and to continue. In this report the Board is not censuring any individual or group or institution. We are merely trying to reveal frankly certain facts which have resulted because of conditions and social customs to which we have all been, for the most part, too indifferent, and for which, consequently, we are to a certain extent responsible. The Board feels that these conditions should be frankly, kindly, and honestly stated in order that the people of North Carolina may be acquainted with our social disqualifications, and that all enlargement of our program of public welfare may be made with full knowledge of these disqualifications as a foundation. Our State can well rejoice in the great things that it has done and is doing, but there is yet much to be accomplished, and in this great work for North Carolina we need the intelligent interest and patriotic support of our entire citizenship.

Very truly yours,WM. A. BLAIR, Chairman.
THE CHILD PROBLEM IN NORTH CAROLINA

From May 1, 1921, when a systematic keeping of records was established, to June 30, 1922, the end of the fiscal year, approximately 10,000 children came under the supervision of Superintendents of Public Welfare and Judges of the Juvenile Court. (The picture facing this page is of an actual group.) We do not claim that these children have had everything done for them that should have been done, by any means. The facilities for giving them adequate care, training, and protection are totally inadequate. The encouraging aspect is that we are admitting the condition of these dependent, neglected and delinquent children to be an acute and far-reaching social problem. They are now at the crossroads; one way leads to correctional and penal institutions, the criminal courts, the almshouses, the street; the other to good citizenship. Which road will they take? On page 39 we are pointing out some of the facilities essential for a satisfactory State-wide program of public welfare that should lead the faltering feet of many of these wayfarers into happy, useful manhood and womanhood.

NORTH CAROLINA'S BEST CROP—HER CHILDREN

NORTH CAROLINA'S PLAN OF PUBLIC WELFARE

BIENNIAL REPORT OF THE STATE BOARD OF CHARITIES AND PUBLIC WELFARE December 1, 1920, to June 30, 1922
PUBLIC WELFARE IN GENERAL

In any real democracy a state program of public welfare is as imperative for progress as a state program of public education or a state program of public health. Each of these three essential activities looks towards the same objective, that is, the development of a citizenry robust in mind, body, and estate. Each approaches, from a different angle the tremendous problem of developing and maintaining a population of the highest possible degree of health, happiness, and efficiency. Each makes a contribution of equal value to the common weal.

General recognition of the far-reaching significance of organized effort by the State in behalf of its delinquent, defective, dependent, and undeveloped members has been, on the whole, slow. This has been largely because the problem of the delinquent, the defective, and the dependent elements of population is a scientific as well as humanitarian problem, one which affects the very mainspring of a commonwealth, the quality of its human material, and as such must be approached first and foremost in the scientific spirit. This spirit, which is a result of broad education and experience, is naturally not generally prevalent among the masses of the people. A profound ignorance of the magnitude of the problem which delinquency, defectiveness, and dependency present in a complex civilization is mainly responsible for the sluggishness, and even occasionally the hostility of the common attitude towards public welfare work.

THE VEIL OF IGNORANCE IS LIFTING

But gradually the veil of such ignorance is lifting. An increasing number of specialists in the science of sociology, workers familiar with both the theory and the practice of this subject, as well as other longtime servants of the public good, are spreading abroad the knowledge that a civilization is exactly as strong as the human foundation upon which it rests. When this foundation is honeycombed by feeble-mindedness, insanity, crime, dependency, illiteracy, and all forms of mental and moral depravity, and when such menaces are allowed to increase without restriction, the superstructure of society is threatened and must eventually fall unless immediate steps be taken to check the spread of the basic deterioration: to repair as efficiently as possible the present wreckage and to prevent further havoc in future.

The encouraging fact that forty-one of the States in this Union have now official machinery for public welfare work bears witness that the importance of this proper function of the State is being more and more widely recognized. But complete education of the public in regard to the vital necessity of this work is the next step in order that it attain full efficiency.

PROBLEMS OF PUBLIC WELFARE

Public welfare work deals primarily with four widespread conditions which debilitate a nation: delinquency, defectiveness, dependency, and unequal opportunity in the commonwealth. Delinquency shows itself in all the variety of offenses against society committed by criminals, adult and juvenile. The pitiful hordes of the defective, i. e., the feeble-minded, the insane, the epileptic, the deaf, dumb and blind overcrowd our inadequate institutions and spread themselves among the normal population, reproducing themselves so prolifically that, at their present rate of increase, in a few generations there may be danger of a preponderate majority over the superior. The dependent (who are usually also defective in some respect) are drags upon their communities, clogging the wheels of economic progress. And in our whole domain unequal opportunities are a constant source of dependency, defectiveness and delinquency. In the wake of these serious social ailments follows a swarm of attendant evils, of which prostitution with its spread of venereal diseases, and illegitimacy with its disgrace and handicap of innocent children are chief.

Such vast problems as these it is the business of the State's public welfare machinery to investigate, to remedy, and to take steps to decrease in future. The public health service may insure the feeble-minded child a vigorous body, but unless the State's public welfare program is such as to segregate this defective and thus prevent his promiscuous breeding, society will be increasingly weakened by the perpetuation of the mentally defective, however physically healthy they may be. Public education may provide excellent schools for those capable of learning in them. But what of the comparatively large element in the population which cannot profit by the unusual method of education, unless the State Department of Public Welfare will supervise their specially adapted training and will place them in institutions adequately fitted to care for them? Interlinked as the departments of health, education and public welfare are, they are all equally necessary in a democratic State where opportunity for “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” is guaranteed to every citizen.

MODERN TENDENCIES IN PUBLIC WELFARE WORK

Evolution of public welfare work in the United States has been a steady, if slow, progression. None of the forty-one states which have established public welfare systems have in any known instance, abolished
them. Instead, in practically every state and in all the more progressive where such systems exist, the scope of public welfare activities has been constantly widened with excellent results.

Certain general tendencies are to be noted in the work at present. Perhaps most conspicuous among these is the tendency to center more power in the State Department or Board of Public Welfare. State boards of charities and public welfare were organized originally merely for the supervision of state institutions for dependents and the correlation of efforts of various charitable agencies. In many states the function of the board remains to a large extent supervisory; but in more progressive states the board is given greater executive and administrative power. The most notable instance of this, as well as the most successful, is the State Board of Control of Minnesota, which has the administration of all state institutions. There are, however, numerous questions which arise in regard to the wisdom of such pronounced centralization as has been established in Minnesota. Still, results all over the country apparently point to the fact that when the State Department of Public Welfare has a moderate amount of supervision and control with which to put into force its recommendations, the benefits are more evident than when the board's function is merely supervisory.

The imperative need of employment of specially trained workers in public welfare activities is another comparatively recent development of this branch of social service in the United States. With the problems of public welfare essentially scientific and requiring for their solution not merely intelligence and tactful personality, but clear knowledge as well, the worker trained in the principles of sociology and the practice of case work becomes a practical necessity. The successful social worker, like the poet, is probably born, not made; but it is plain to persons familiar with the situation that suitable native endowment of the worker should be reinforced by special training if the best results are to be secured.

CHANGES IN THE SPIRIT OF THE WORK

Various changes in the spirit of public welfare work as well as in its organization are also noticeable at present. Chief among these is the emphasis which is now being laid upon the idea of prevention rather than of temporary alleviation and palliation as the most important aspect of social work. Public welfare work now tends to look ahead. This is well, for without such intelligent anticipation the threatened menace of startling increase of mental and moral defectiveness cannot be successfully forestalled.

Another highly important forward step in public welfare work has been the growth of the idea of the advantage of rehabilitation rather than retribution in dealing with criminals, correction rather than undiscriminating punishment. The theory upon which is based this corrective
rather than punitive method is that the great majority of offenders against society are not vicious, but sick—usually temporarily, either physically, mentally or morally—and that such sickness is amenable to intelligent treatment. The increasing popularity of the parole system is conspicuous practical manifestation of this idea. Although it may be assumed from this and similar evidence that humanitarianism is increasing, fortunately the tendency of the times is to strip it of its vitiating sentimentality and to clothe it, instead, in the durable and saner vesture of science and common sense.

THE BLIGHT OF SOCIETY'S UNDESIRABLES

The undesirable elements of society, the delinquent, the defective and the dependent, are parasites—voluntary or involuntary—on the body social and politic. The health of this body, its progress, and in the not far distant future, its vitality itself, depends upon whether these inferior and unfortunate elements are allowed to increase without restriction, immeasurably to weaken and undermine the quality of the foundation of the social and political structure. The public welfare departments in the several states are the organizations most responsible for the efficacy with which this vital problem is to be met. Backed by the powerful support of enlightened public opinion, the State systems of public welfare can develop an efficient machinery whereby the present effects of these dangerous social ailments may be treated in the scientific spirit and with common sense as well as with all kindness; and whereby steps may be taken to prevent their future promiscuous spread.

The key to successful public welfare work is expressed in the familiar adage that “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” And nowhere, for the sake of its own safety, can the State so ill afford to be negligent as with respect to the quality of the human material which is its ultimate and which must be its stable foundation.

PUBLIC WELFARE IN NORTH CAROLINA

The report which follows is submitted with a reasonable degree of pride in what has been accomplished during the last biennial period. There has been a steady growth of the work in many directions as a result of a more and more intelligent public conception as to the service a State Board of Charities and Public Welfare may render. This service has been wider even than may be shown by this report, for in addition to routine work much time is given to conferences by different members of the staff with visitors who come to the office for assistance and information along various lines. During the eleven months from December 1, 1921, to November 1, 1922, more than six hundred persons have visited the office of the board.

Several outstanding pieces of work have been undertaken and practically accomplished during the past year. Notably, a comprehensive
study of poor relief as administered through county homes and pauper lists; a study of penal institutions which included an inspection of a majority of the jails and chain-gangs in the State; an inspection of every private child-caring institution; a study of two feeble-minded families with the usual ramifications of crime and dependency; a study of the cases of 245 children. Forty of these were children who had been paroled from the Jackson Training School, fifty were children who had been placed by the North Carolina Children's Home Society, and the other 155 were children in two private institutions. In addition to the above studies, we have undertaken the formulation and promotion of a program for mental health and hygiene.

In our report we have tried to state facts as they actually exist in order that the public may understand and sympathize with the policies of the board—policies which we conceive to be fundamentally important. All the public welfare work is based on the theory that it is better, and will be ultimately cheaper, to prevent social misfits and social disorganizations than to care for social wreckage. The test of the value and thoroughness of the work will be whether or not it eventually decreases the State's liabilities and increases tremendously its assets.

The State Board had the misfortune to lose Hon. R. F. Beasley as Commissioner in March, 1920. Mr. Beasley resigned to go into private business. Any satisfactory extension of the work is built on the splendid foundation Mr. Beasley laid as the first Commissioner and executive officer of the Board.

Later on Miss Daisy Denson, who for a number of years had been the faithful secretary of the Board of Charities, previous to the establishment of a Board of Public Welfare, also resigned. This left the Board with a new executive officer and entirely new staff to be appointed. The Board was without an executive officer from March, 1921, until July of the same year, and during that period the present Commissioner, who had directed the child welfare work under Mr. Beasley for two years, was in charge of the office, and in July, 1921, was elected Commissioner. At the same time Dr. Howard W. Odum, Director of the School of Public Welfare at the University of North Carolina, was made Consulting Expert to the Board. In this capacity Dr. Odum has given generously of his time and ability, and his advice and assistance have been invaluable. Dr. Odum receives no salary for this work. The executive staff has been gradually increased by the addition of Miss Shotwell and Miss Tuttle, each of whom is responsible for a division of the child welfare work; Mr. Roy Brown, Field Agent; Miss Nell Battle Lewis, Secretary; Mr. Wiley B. Sanders, inspector; Miss Fannie Dark, bookkeeper and stenographer; Miss Claire Hodges, librarian and stenographer. Mrs. Arthur Holding, stenographer, is the only member of the staff or office force, with the exception of the Commissioner, who was with the Board when the last Legislature met. The
University joins with the State Board in employing Dr. Harry W. Crane, Director of the Bureau of Mental Health and Hygiene. The limited appropriation of the State Board made it impossible for the Board to employ a whole time psychologist, so an arrangement was made with the University, whereby the University and the State Board jointly employ Dr. Crane and divide his salary and his time. Every addition to the staff of the State Board has been made after giving serious consideration to the training, experience and personality of the person under consideration in relation to the work they were to do, and, as a result we believe that the Board has an executive staff that for loyalty, ability and conscientious service is unusual. It can be truthfully said the State Board of Charities and Public Welfare is trying faithfully and conscientiously to serve the people, and where the Board falls short there are extenuating circumstances such as lack of personnel and funds. The work has been done as economically as possible to get results. The books of the Board have been audited by the State Auditor and found to be correct.

When the present Commissioner of Public Welfare was appointed her first efforts were directed towards organizing the work of the Board under five bureaus, whose activities should cover specialized fields according to the duties required of the Board by law. There are now five bureaus under the State Board of Charities and Public Welfare. They are: County Organization, Child Welfare, Institutional Supervision, Mental Health and Hygiene, and Promotion and Education. The work of these bureaus will be given elsewhere in this report in detail, and will give a fair idea of what has been accomplished during the past two years.

But the organization of the public welfare work has not been without difficulties and dangers, for as has been pertinently said, “It's easier to get good laws than it is to get good out of the law,” and as a matter of general information it may be well to discuss briefly some of the difficulties encountered in organizing the work.

DIFFICULTIES

The first difficulty is the attitude of a great number of people who see in every public office created an extra burden to them as taxpayers and an easy berth for some one. It is usually, too, the individual who pays the smallest taxes and makes the least contribution to civic progress who speaks the loudest. Illustrating this was an incident that happened in a certain county. It had been advertised in the local papers that the Commissioner was to appear before the county authorities on a certain date to ask for the appointment of a local officer. The public was invited to express an opinion as to the appointment. The only organized opposition that was in evidence on the day the decision was to be made was led by a comparatively well to do, but illiterate farmer,
who had gathered together a number of people from different sections of the county, to protest against any increase in taxation. The majority of his followers could probably neither read nor write, obviously they could have little conception of what they were fighting, but they had a voice and they had a vote; they were entitled to a hearing, and their leader expressed himself emphatically. He took for his text, “The back of the farmer is broke with taxes.” “What's your farm worth?” asked the county attorney. “Well, about ten or twelve thousand dollars,” he replied. “If that's so,” said the county attorney after figuring a little, “What we are planning to appropriate for welfare work in this county will cost you around eighty-three cents a year.”

But the story of the farmer is typical of a condition that is quite prevalent, and not confined by any means to the illiterate class. Frequently educated people are indifferent and really antagonistic to social work because they are uninformed as to the extent and seriousness of our social disabilities. To most social workers, and certainly those having experience in rural fields, such statements as these will sound familiar: “There aren't many weak-minded children in our community”: “There isn't any child labor here because we haven't any cotton mills, and any way I always worked, and it didn't hurt me”; “All the children around here are in school that ought to be,” etc. To overcome such an attitude it must be proven that the work is needed, and that it pays from an economical as well as a social viewpoint. Both are difficult, principally because they cannot be quickly done, and in the meantime an impatient public is demanding something for its money. In order to prove that the work is needed surveys must be made and statistics gathered that will bring to light the conditions as they actually exist, and that will give a basis for the requirements of the Board, and justify statements as to future probabilities.

During the past year the Board has made a careful study of two families for the purpose of proving how much it cost the State not to do good social work. In these families the problems of mental defectives, dependency and crime all entered. The cost of these two families alone, which are but typical of others, is so enormous that “he who runs may read” how foolish it is to permit human wreckage, and then try to patch it up by remedial measures, rather than to stop the supply. A synopsis of one of these is included in this report (see Wake family), and the other which is very much more thorough and comprehensive will be published January 1st.

Another difficulty to overcome is the necessity for shattering pleasant traditions, that have been carefully nurtured and extensively believed, if we are to be honest with the public and with our own convictions. The General Assembly is memorialized at each meeting to enlarge institutional facilities and build new institutions, and petitioners have a very comfortable feeling that if all could be gotten that was asked for,
many social problems would be solved, and individual responsibility relieved. As a matter of fact admission of the necessity for a correctional institution, particularly for children, is prima facie evidence that the home, the school, the church and the community have all failed in their jobs to some extent. Again we frequently hear people remark that “it's a pity more children couldn't be gotten into orphanages.” It is a tragedy when any child in need of help and care fails to receive it, but the fundamental problem with which we should grapple is the one of keeping the family intact, rather than striving to provide institutional care for a fragment of it. So long as a child is considered a thing apart from the family environment, no material progress is made in reducing the number of dependents in the State.

Then there is a minimum danger of too much centralization of power. Just how far the State should go in its efforts to carry out the constitutional mandate that all men shall have an opportunity for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and at the same time avoid lessening individual responsibility and discouraging initiative is a serious question. It is obvious that social progress will travel a very uneven road unless there is some general plan for the good of all, and some agency that has the power to supervise and execute to a limited extent. Rich and progressive counties where social leadership exists would have compulsory attendance laws, child labor laws, establish juvenile courts, give attention to the needs of the poor and defective; other counties or communities would be indifferent to all or many of these measures. We believe we are overcoming this difficulty to some extent in North Carolina through the plan of county units of public welfare. These have some definite responsibilities under the State law; they are required to send in certain reports and represent the State in certain instances, but they are largely left to their own wishes when it comes to promoting, correlating, and applying local ideas and efforts and using local agencies, the State acting in an advisory and assisting capacity only. No State program of public welfare should be made so inelastic in its general conception that it cannot conform to local conditions. We believe this can be done without endangering definite and integral policies that must be maintained by the State department.

Another great handicap in organizing the public welfare work has been the wide gap between our progressive social legislation and our facilities for carrying out the same. When the juvenile court law was passed there were only two corrective institutions in the State for juveniles, the Jackson Training School for White Boys and the Caswell Training School for Mental Defectives. The institutions for the insane and epileptics were totally inadequate to care for the number of applications. Consequently it has been most discouraging for superintendents of public welfare and judges of the juvenile courts to have defective and delinquent persons in their charge for whom the State failed to provide
sufficient corrective institutional care. This is a condition that is being gradually overcome, and it is safe to say that better and increased facilities have come about as a result of the welfare work which has shown the pressing need for the same.

The last difficulty to be mentioned is probably the most serious one of all—the need for trained workers to carry out the program and plan of the State department, and overcoming this difficulty will include to a large extent the solving of all others. That such workers are more successful if familiar with local conditions, and if they have a local background is also true. Then to take a highly trained worker, accustomed to city work, where adequate facilities are available to handle practically any social problem, and put him in a small town or a rural community where the worker has not only to solve the problems, but be ingenious enough to make the facilities, is exceedingly discouraging to the worker. It was evident then that trained leadership must largely be gotten from local material, and in order to meet this end not only in North Carolina, but in other southern states, the University of North Carolina established the School of Public Welfare (see report of Bureau of Promotion and Education).

Revealing the difficulties of the work of a State Board of Public Welfare presents the best argument for a state having a well organized department of public welfare. The ignorance and indifference of the public as to social disqualifications; a sentimental attitude rather than a scientific spirit; short-sighted economic policy in handling social problems; lack of facilities to train and treat defectives and delinquents; the lack of trained leadership. These are the problems that can only be overcome by a State Department of Public Welfare that functions for all classes and all sections. That progress is slow and frequently retarded need not be discouraging. Christian civilization is two thousand years old, and we are only beginning to recognize that the test of civilization is the care and protection afforded those who of themselves cannot function as assets to society.

COUNTY ORGANIZATION

Forty-six counties have whole-time superintendents of public welfare, eleven counties have superintendents giving part of their time to the work, and forty-three counties are requiring the superintendent of public instruction to serve also as superintendent of public welfare.

There is more work along the lines required of superintendents of public welfare in any one county than can be efficiently done by one person, therefore to require the superintendent of public instruction to add to his already manifold duties by undertaking any part of the welfare work is obviously unfair. It is also obviously unfair to deprive the children and the disadvantaged adults in a certain number of counties of the services that a superintendent of public welfare may render. There is no democracy in providing special care and protection for only a part of the people and neglecting the other part. The welfare work should be enlarged and strengthened to the extent that the enforcement of school attendance, child labor and probation service at least would be a state-wide social program. Then only can there be guaranteed to every child protection and education, and to this should be added recreation and such relief or charity as his condition requires.

In organizing the work in the counties one of the most difficult things has been to get local officials to see that the “welfare officer,” as he is frequently called, should be a person of education, high moral standards and social vision, and that the office is not to be filled by a political dependent. There is just as definite a technique in handling social problems as there is in practicing medicine or law. The social worker who does not understand this, and add to his inclination to do what's right for human beings, the knowledge of how to do what's right, is guilty of experimenting with human misery and need. Having said this much, we must go further and say that the majority of the superintendents of public welfare are doing excellent work in their respective counties. They are men and women who are doing the work because they love it and see the seriousness of our social problems, and frequently they do it at a financial sacrifice. If ever the history of North Carolina's great adventure in public welfare is written as it developed in the various counties it will be a story of the self-sacrifice, the heart-breaking labor, the devotion of a small group of men and women—“welfare officers”—who heard a voice that said, “Even as you do it unto the least of these.”

The State Board of Public Welfare has established a standard system of record-keeping for county officers, and requires monthly records to be submitted to the State Board. These reports keep the Board fairly well informed about the work in general in the various counties and furnish valuable statistics as to the number of persons or cases handled, the charges on which children are brought into court, the disposition of court cases, county poor, relief, etc.

When the Supreme Court of the United States declared the Federal Child Labor Law unconstitutional, five federal inspectors were automatically removed from the State, and superintendents of public welfare, as local representatives of the State Child Welfare Commission, assumed the responsibility of enforcing the Child Labor Law. This put an extra burden on the time and resources of officials who were already taxed to the utmost in doing the work required of them, but with the help of the State Child Welfare Commission, which put some additional field agents to work, the situation has been satisfactorily handled. (See report of the Commission.) The time has now come when North Carolina should strengthen her laws relating to child labor in order to conform to national standards and make adequate provision for their enforcement. In this way only will we be forever relieved of any necessity for federal inspection and be in a position to say to the Federal government, “We can do our own job.”

As to the administrative machinery for enforcing child labor legislation, this is already provided in a State Child Welfare Commission, of which the Commissioner of Public Welfare is chairman, whose local agent is the County Superintendent of Public Welfare. Additional help should be given superintendents of public welfare in order that the law may be thoroughly and efficiently enforced, and it is but fair that this help should be provided through State funds that will supplement the funds appropriated by the counties. It would be advisable, we believe, for the State to require a certain group of the larger counties to have whole-time superintendents of public welfare with an assistant to be paid from State funds, another group to have whole-time superintendents, one-third of whose salary should be paid by the State, and still another group of rural and sparsely populated counties to put a limited sum for clerical assistance and traveling expenses in the office of the superintendent of public instruction. This plan of course should be worked out on a basis of population and manufacturing interests.

At the present time $115,543.96 is being spent annually from public funds on county public welfare work. This includes the salaries of superintendents of public welfare, probation and school attendance officers, office help, office supplies, transportation, etc. In comparison with the work that is done and the various and serious responsibilities that are placed on the department of public welfare, this is an entirely inadequate sum to finance the work properly. The amount of $140,000 is spent annually in North Carolina from public funds for outdoor poor relief. In other words the “pauper lists” cost the State approximately $5,000 more each year than is spent for public welfare in both State and county work (the State Board gets $20,000 annually). The pauper lists are composed of persons who for different reasons cannot or will not be sent to the county home, and who appear before the county commissioners and ask for aid. Generally speaking no investigation is made to determine the applicant's real need, but on recommendation of
some one, usually a neighbor, enough is given to tide the applicant over from one month's misery to the next. Just as frequently as not the money is given unwisely and foolishly used. Indeed the pauper list in some counties is so large that it raises a question of whether or not its administration is not quite a political asset. Yet no question has ever been raised regarding this careless handling of public funds (there are some exceptions of course to the way outdoor relief is administered), but much has been said in the various counties about the cost of public welfare whose ultimate object is to decrease the State's dependents.

COUNTY BOARDS OF PUBLIC WELFARE

The weakest link in the chain of public welfare agencies is the county board of public welfare. This board should be more definitely related to the superintendent of public welfare and assume a greater responsibility for the work in the county. Under the present system the superintendent of public welfare is appointed and paid by the joint boards of education and county commissioners. Naturally he reports to these boards and looks to them for direction. These boards have their special interest and specific duties, which places the welfare work in the unenviable position of the step child of the boards. On the other hand the county board of charities and public welfare, composed of three persons selected for their especial qualifications to serve cannot be expected to feel as great an interest as they otherwise might in the work of an executive officer for whose selection and program they are not responsible. It might be advisable to make the chairman of the board of county commissioners and chairman of the board of education members, ex officio of the board of public welfare, or some other member designated by these two boards, and allow this board the privilege of appointing the superintendent of public welfare, subject to approval by the State Board of Charities and Public Welfare, and at such compensation as shall be fixed by the joint boards of county commissioners and education. The chairman of the county board of charities and public welfare should be selected from one of the three members appointed by the State board.

WHOLESOME RECREATION AT ONE OF THE ORPHANAGES

BUREAU OF CHILD WELFARE

(The work of this bureau is carried on through two divisions: Division of Child-Caring Institutions and Division of Case Work.)

I. DIVISION CHILD-CARING INSTITUTIONS

The responsibility for the care and training of the dependent child is a matter of supreme importance and not to be lightly undertaken by individuals or organizations. It is the duty of the State to supervise duly approved public and private institutions, and to refuse to license any that are not absolutely necessary, properly established and well equipped to receive children.

Institutions are to be judged by the quality of the product they turn out. There are institutions in the State whose children in health, social habits, education and all round personality and character justify the belief that high standards can be lived up to and fulfilled. What one has done others can do, and it is the privilege of the State Board of Charities and Public Welfare to make available all the resources of the best training and experience in child care in the country for the benefit of the child-caring institutions of the State.

At present there are twenty-three private and two semi-private orphanages in the State. The semi-private are the white and colored orphanages at Oxford, both of which receive State appropriation. More than 2,900 children are being cared for by these institutions. Only one new institution was granted license this year. This is the Mary Lee Home for Dependent Colored Children at High Point. The building is small, hence the capacity is limited, but the superintendent, Mary Lee Byerly, is planning to enlarge it as soon as she can secure financial assistance.

It has been necessary to close up two child-caring institutions and to refuse to license ten organizations and individuals wishing to receive dependent children because of failure to meet State requirements.

The following individuals have been throughout the State soliciting funds for institutions that do not exist, and the public is warned not to contribute to them:

Otto Cox, “Church of God” Orphanage. Supposed to be located in Tennessee.

Two colored women soliciting for home for “Daughters of Jerusalem and Sisters of the Church of God and Christ.” Supposed to be located near Rocky Mount, N. C.

VISITS TO INSTITUTIONS

A visit lasting from one to two days has been made to every child-caring institution in the State. The administration and work of each has been studied carefully and a written report made of each visit. These reports, with recommendations whenever deemed wise, have been sent to the various members of the board of trustees. The following extracts from letters received from trustees show that they are intensely interested in their institutions, and many of them want all the assistance they can get to improve the orphanages:

“This seems to me to be a very full and complete report. In fact it gives detailed information that as a member of the board of this institution I am very glad indeed to have, and shall file for future reference. I am sure that the entire board appreciates the fact that this inspection has been made by the Board of Charities and Public Welfare.”

“I have yours of yesterday, and thank you for your interest in the orphanage. We feel that this is going to work well, and if so it is to your credit that we try it, for nobody thought of doing so until you suggested it. Our board feels very kindly toward you. You have helped us get some things we have been unable to get in the management of the institution.”

“I have read the report with the keenest interest, and am sure it will be helpful to us in planning for the future of the orphanage. The whole situation is covered in a most systematic and helpful way, and the suggestions and recommendations are excellent.”

“I think the report and the study very thorough, and I heartily agree with the recommendations.”

Since the orphanages are so unlike and conditions are different, it is impossible to draw any definite comparisons from the visits or the reports made to the boards of trustees. Realizing that there were many phases of work that were more or less similar, a questionnaire dealing with five phases of institutional management—administration, finances, number of children received and dismissed, education and physical care of children while in the institution, was sent to each superintendent. This information has been tabulated so that each institution can study its own work in the light and experience of the others.

ADMINISTRATION (See Table I, Page 28)

From Table I of the comparative summaries of the questionnaire it will be noted that there are 251 trustees in these institutions, and that they hold 152 meetings each year. Each institution has a superintendent,
and four of them in addition, a business manager. There are 261 other men and women assisting the superintendent in their work, 87 being teachers, 47 cottage mothers, 62 matrons, and 66 officers. It will be observed that in five institutions the members of the board of trustees meet once a month, and that in one, the Alexander Home in Charlotte, they meet once a week.

FINANCIAL STATEMENT (See Table II, Page 29)

The estimated value of orphanage property in the State is $3,888,000. This means that 161 buildings and 2,276 acres of land owned by the orphanages are valued at $3,888,000.

Last year $904,495 was used in caring for dependent children in the orphanages. Of this amount the churches and fraternal orders gave $748,909, the State $50,000, and individuals $105,586.

Thirteen institutions have an endowment fund of $613,547, while seven have an indebtedness of $51,246.

There is no uniform method of keeping books in the institutions, and the item “other expenses” in the expenditure column has several meanings. It was placed under “maintenance and operation of plant” in the questionnaire filled out by superintendents, but the interpretation has not been the same, hence the meaning varies.

The expenditures of the institutions is $467,200, which includes $174,910 for salaries, $42,640 for clothing, $148,165 for food, $95,558 for other expenses, and $5,927 for interest on borrowed money. The above expenditure does not include the improvements being made in twenty institutions with the approximate cost of $242,388.

The per capita cost of caring for the children as given in the questionnaire is $195.

CHILDREN (See Table III, Page 30)

Last year 2,940 children were cared for in the institutions. From Table III it will be seen that the capacity of the institutions is 3,020, but that only 2,940 cases were cared for. Within the past few weeks two institutions have completed new buildings, thus increasing their capacity. In all 1,581 applications for admissions were received by the institutions, but only 431 children were admitted, while 331 children were dismissed from orphanages the past year. This number is fairly large considering that only two institutions make any attempt to place children. These were dismissed as follows:

47 graduated.155 returned to relatives.31 placed in homes.28 secured positions.21 have gone to college.27 ran away.3 were sent to Caswell Training School.2 died.17 were disposed of otherwise. (No statement made as to disposition.)
EDUCATION (See Table IV, Page 31)

The average school term for the orphanages is nine months, with an average of four hours per day per child. Last year 2,269 children were in school and they attended the grades as follows:

321 in the first grade.248 in the second.268 in the third.247 in the fourth.297 in the fifth.278 in the sixth.198 in the seventh.134 in the eighth.91 in the ninth.106 in the tenth.81 in the eleventh.

It will be observed that more than 1,600 children that attend school in the orphanages are in the first six grades, and that there is a considerable dropping off in numbers in the grades that follow. This is not easy to explain, since only two of the orphanages attempt to do any child-placing, and the total number that these two placed was very few over one hundred.

Six institutions, Alexander Home, Buncombe County Children's Home, Falcon, Nazareth, Pythian and Union County Children's Home, send their children to public schools of the community in which the orphanage is located. Three institutions, Christian, Eliada and Thompson, send their high school pupils to the city schools, and two others, Freewill Baptist and Children's Home, receive salary from the county for one or more teachers in their schools.

The number of volumes in the libraries of the orphanages runs from 50 in the small home to 3,000 in the larger, making a total of 15,059 in all the institutions.

One hundred and twenty magazines especially suitable for children are taken, and the number taken in each institution varies from three to twenty-two.

Only one institution, Oxford, employs a director of physical education. Three, Thomasville, Oxford, and the Odd Fellows Home, have a teacher of home economics.

PHYSICAL CARE (See Table V, Page 33)

Seventeen of the twenty-four institutions require a physical examination of the children upon entrance, while four of these have a physical examination at regular intervals, and eight have a regular dental examination. Eighteen doctors, fourteen dentists and nine nurses are regularly employed by the institutions to look after the health of the children.

The orphanages of the State have many things in common, but all have their own individuality and are working out their problems in a different way. The spirit and interest of the workers in all the institutions is remarkable. In many instances there is such a devotion to the work that many of the officers have been in service twenty-five years. Some of the most interesting features of the work being done are given below:

1. Cottage System.—Only one institution in the State is run on the cottage system entirely. The plan is so successful that the superintendent would not consider returning to the congregate plan. Several others have a partial cottage system, using the cottages for small children, but have the congregate dining-room for the larger children.

2. Spirit of the Institution.—One of the finest features of several orphanages is the “homelike atmosphere.” The superintendents and their families eat in the dining-room with the children, and there is no difference in their food. The children realize that the superintendent is their friend and the spirit of the institution is very fine. Plans for developing the initiative of the individual children are worked out, thus preventing the danger of them becoming more or less institutionalized.

3. Children's Contact with Society.—Until recently there was only one institution that sent the children to the public schools of the community. The children of this orphanage do not know of any other plan and their work is quite remarkable. They take part in all community activities and are considered a definite part of the community. This plan is now being tried in five other institutions with splendid results.

In six or more orphanages the children attend church and Sunday School outside the institution. Many of them sing in the church choir and play in the Sunday School orchestra.

4. Physical Examination of Children.—One of the first things a new superintendent did was to have every child in the orphanage given a thorough physical examination. This information was recorded and a photograph of every child was taken and attached to his record.

5. Teaching of Thrift.—One superintendent has worked out a most unique and practical plan for the teaching of thrift. All children over ten years of age receive a penny a day for doing their tasks well. In case of failure to do the task satisfactorily the child forfeits his penny for that day. All children under ten receive one-half penny for their tasks. At the end of the month one-third of the amount that is due the child is placed to his credit in a savings bank. This money will be given him when he leaves the institution. The other two-thirds of the month's earnings is given to the child and he is taught to spend it wisely.

6. Physical Education.—The establishment of a department of physical education is one of the most important pieces of work that has been accomplished in any institution during the past year. There are two divisions of this work, one for boys and one for girls, with a director for each division. The work is similar and is organized into four groups: playground activities, swimming, folk games, and scouting.

Each month the children are weighed and the records kept. Report cards are given every three months and the children are graded on proficiency, conduct and attendance.

7. Mothers' Aid.—As a usual thing, the orphanages are not given to many and varied experiments, but one of them is doing some work in aiding mothers in their own homes, which is rather unusual. The plan is worked in connection with the local church. The church appoints a committee whose duty it is to look after the case and report to the
church and to the orphanage. More than 130 children are being kept with their mothers through this aid. It costs a great deal less than it does to bring the children to the institution, and does not separate them from their mother.

The orphanage officials have found that there should be skilled supervision of this work, and have decided to secure a field worker who will make a survey of the cases asking for aid and give close supervision to those receiving it.

8. Alumni Association.—The girls and boys who leave one of the orphanages have organized an alumni association which meets once a year. The annual meeting is held at the orphanage at Easter, and many look forward to returning for the meeting. Everything is done by the institution to make their stay happy.

AIMS TO BE ATTAINED IN CHILD-CARING INSTITUTIONS OF NORTH CAROLINA

Institutions represent a financial investment by the public; they represent also a sense of responsibility in regard to the care and training of children. There is a large place in the scheme of child welfare for the orphanage and the institution that accepts children for care, temporary or permanent, assumes a responsibility far reaching in its scope.

What dependent children need is exactly what all children need. Every child is a part of a family group and should be so considered. Any plan of child welfare that does not take into consideration the child's family background in planning for his training and protection is inadequate. Some competent person connected with the institution should in every case visit the home from which the child comes. When children are received without due precaution, homes are needlessly broken up and often the institutions become overcrowded with children who might have been kept within the circle of their family. The State Board of Charities and Public Welfare recommends certain features which it deems essential in child-caring institutions in the State.

1. The Cottage System.

The ideal plan for children's institutions is the cottage system, which provides everything from kitchen and dining-room to sleeping and play quarters for from 20 to 30 children. Each unit should be as complete in itself as possible, approximating the family home. Since many of the institutions have been erected on the congregate plan, it may be impractical to make immediate changes, but every institution should plan to carry out the cottage system as far as possible in any new building or in the remodeling of old ones.

2. An Institutional Visitor.

It is important that every institution make a special study of the child before admission, in order to be satisfied that every possible means of keeping a family together has been exhausted, and also to secure all available knowledge concerning the child's family history and environment in order that the most intelligent care and training may be given him.

Every institution should make it a matter of conscience and pride to keep in touch with the children who have been in their care. Annual visits should be made to the homes from which the children come in order to find out whether conditions have sufficiently improved for them to return. It is also wise and profitable to visit them after they have been placed in new homes or returned to their own. It is a great satisfaction and encouragement to learn of those who have made good and who have become useful members of society. On the other hand, the boy or girl who has not succeeded needs help from the institution.

An institutional visitor or field worker trained in social service work would render the above service to an institution. The information that the institutional visitor would obtain through investigation would also make it possible for local committees from churches and fraternal organizations to pass more intelligently on applications for admission.

3. Baby Cottages as Temporary Homes.

Baby cottages should be used to keep a family of children together or for the temporary care of children when there is hope of restoring the family unit. To take a very young child of normal parentage, place it in a baby cottage and plan to keep it in the institution until it reaches maturity is unwise for the reason that good foster homes can always be provided for such children. The younger a child is the more successfully he can be placed. The best welfare of the child demands the care of an individual mother, and every possible effort should be made to find a mother.

4. Extension of Age Limit.

One of the most serious problems of child welfare work in the State is what to do with the boy or girl over 12 who is dependent or neglected. Oftentimes a child of this age loses both parents either by death or neglect, and there is no place to send him, and many become delinquent. If the orphanages would extend their age limit and receive such cases it would be a great service to many children in the State.

5. A Regular Examination of All Children.

Children should receive thorough physical examination at the time of admission to institutions. When practical, newly admitted children should be kept apart from others until known to be free from infectious or contagious diseases.

All children should be examined at least annually during their stay in the institution and before discharge. There should be on file for each a continuous health record, including admission examination, subsequent examinations and records of treatment in cases of defect.

Health record blanks may be secured free from the State Board of Charities and Public Welfare.

6. A Director of Physical Education.

Play and recreation are now recognized essentials in the development of character. The individual is more completely revealed in play than in any other way. The qualities that are strongest or weakest may be easily demonstrated on the playground. The advancement of physical education as a part of the school program is one of the outstanding features of the educational development of this age. It goes without question that play must be supervised, that the child does not know how to play, and that the best way to advance the play instinct is through organized play.

7. A Teacher of Home Economics.

A well trained teacher of home economics should be employed for the purpose of giving systematic training in home-making. The work should include work in food, textiles and clothing, household management, laundry work, and should be a regular part of the school curriculum. However, practical application of the classroom work with the activities of the children should be made at all times, and this application should be upon an educational basis rather than a matter of routine.

When a girl leaves the orphanage she will live in a small family group and her training in home economics should fit her for this group. Most of her work at the orphanage is based on the large institutional group which makes it hard for her to know how to plan for a small one. When she has been preparing food and cooking for one hundred people it is difficult for her to know how little is needed for four or six people unless she has had some training and experience in it.

TABLE I—ADMINISTRATION Showing number of trustees of institutions, number of meetings held, and number of officers in the institutions.

TABLE III—CHILDREN Showing number cared for and received during year, number of applications, and number dismissed.InstitutionsCapacityNumber Cared ForNumber ReceivedApplicationsDismissalsGraduatedReturned to RelativesPlaced in HomesPositionsCollegeRan AwayDiedCaswellOther DispositionAlexander403498541*1Thomasville53054267600309414Buncombe County Children's Home50764316114Baptist Orphanage (colored)60511284Catholic1161152035317Children's Home1501632097Christian125852940212Eliada605335†2Falcon606144521Freewill Baptist504416251Grandfather55521634631Maxwell32258154†22Methodist Protestant Children's Home485011Methodist25025025200117Mountain404683522Nazareth56496121212Odd Fellows15013014561Oxford3754315512610221742‡3Oxford (colored)**350206951210Presbyterian Home**33026021785223Pythian504692823St. Ann's28253212Thompson8594217015112Union County Children's Home5042354210Total3,0202,9404311,58147155312821272317

*Married.

†Sent to high school instead of college.

‡Sent to Jackson Training School.

**New buildings nearing completion.

WHAT ONE ORPHANAGE IS DOING FOR ITS BOYS IN THE WAY OF VOCATIONAL TRAINING

TABLE IV—EDUCATION Showing length of school term, number grades taught, volumes in library, number magazines for children taken, number teachers of home economics and physical education.InstitutionsSchool TermNumber Children in School According to GradeTeacher Home EconomicsRecreationVolumes in LibraryMagazines Suitable for ChildrenAverage Number Hours Per DayNumber Month1234567891011Director Physical EducationForms of RecreationAlexander Home*5954103411nonoPlayground, well equipped503Thomasville41054484657585644222834yesnoGames, not properly directed3,00014Buncombe County Children's Home*4½9135321nonoGames50Baptist Orphanage (colored)57133556nonoGames1002Catholic591512151381081051110nonoPlayground apparatus, games, hikes7503Children's Home31028201612161318943nono1,20022Christian†6 and 391868851011441nonoGiant stride, see-saws, gamesfewfewEliada49nonoPlayground equipped, games6006Falcon*6910884613233noGames3002Freewill Baptist68279471nonoPhysical exercises, games1002Grandfather68599311344nonoGames2504Maxwell3946564nono3003Methodist Protestant Children's Home3½9675776462nonoGames1,1003Methodist310nopart timeGames2,0006Mountain310568810764nono550Nazareth*58126976324nonoGames, swings30012Odd Fellows Home39958111621111612135yesno

Table IV—ContinuedInstitutionsSchool TermNumber Children in School According to GradeTeacher Home EconomicsRecreationVolumes in LibraryMagazines Suitable for ChildrenAverage Number Hours Per DayNumber Month1234567891011Director Physical EducationForms of RecreationOxford3102625312733443641312422yesyesGames, exercises1,8007Oxford (colored)583930253335308nonoGames75Presbyterian Home69251836303430162121156nono‡Swimming, games1,10021Pythian Home*5912345674nono753St. Ann's510356572noGames1503Thompson397101392513631no§no‡Games, folk dances, swings1,2094Union County Children's Home69nonoTotal4+9+32124826824729727819813491106813115,059120

*Children attend public schools

†Children above fifth grade attend public schools. Other grades attend school at the orphanage.

‡One is being contemplated.

§Matron of each cottage teaches cooking and sewing to teh girls in the cottage.

†Two doctors and two dentists give their services free and take care of all the needs of the children.

II. CASE WORK DIVISION

Problems dealing with individuals and families constitute the major part of the time of a superintendent of public welfare. For this reason work with the superintendent through visits to their counties, and work with them through correspondence will always be of great importance. Often cases are reported from counties which have no superintendent of public welfare. In such cases the bureau of child welfare makes special investigation when necessary. This work in the counties is of vital importance. It keeps the people of the county in touch with the State Department; it helps the State Department to keep its finger on the pulse of the people and it, as no other phase of public welfare work, can show child problems and point the way to solve them.

Thirty-one counties were visited last year in the interest of case work. Four of the thirty-one wanted aid in initiating new superintendents of public welfare. It is impossible to gauge the amount and quality of assistance given. Frequently a superintendent acts on the suggestions made, but thinking only of his problem he forgets to report even when a second request is made. Nevertheless, a sufficient number does report on the value of the help given to make possible this report. Only six counties out of the entire 100 failed to call on the Bureau of Child Welfare for help in solving family problems.

A total of 215 family records, which involve over 500 children, have been made. These records cover long periods of study, investigation and adjustment. This number does not include the 224 cases investigated for the different orphanages. (These were cases the orphanages could not receive for lack of room.) These investigations involve about 600 children, the majority of whom had to be—and were—provided for by superintendents of public welfare to whom the cases were referred for investigation and adjustment.

In addition there are forty-six cases on file where mother's aid seemed the best solution of the problem. About one-half of these are being provided for by the local agencies. Possibly 180 children are implicated here.

It is impossible to give accurately the number of children, since superintendents frequently say “several,” meaning usually from 3 to 5; a total probable is 1,280.

The inciting cause in the majority of cases is neglect. Delinquency is such a close second that one wonders if they are not identical. “Homelessness” covers the ground for many requests. Immorality in the home, nonsupport on the part of the man, desertion of husband or wife, all furnish many problems. There are frequent records of unmarried mothers with the problem of the unwanted child. Less than half dozen cases of deliberate cruelty to children have been reported, and only one of these was due to drunkenness. Many requests for custodial care of various sorts have been received. Seventeen cases have been investigated
for agencies outside the State besides the cases turned over to this department by other State departments.

These figures include only those cases that the superintendents needed help on or that were referred directly to them by the Bureau of Child Welfare from other sources. By far the larger number of requests were for information as to orphanages or special institutions. In the majority of cases the person asking for help had to be told that the orphanages were full, the State Department had no money for local work, and the county officials would have to assume the responsibility for the case unless relatives could be found to receive them.

Of the 1,280 children for whom help has been asked, not more than one-fourth are negroes. This does not give the true state of affairs. The superintendents of public welfare do not report the colored children to the State office except in extreme cases, as they know the futility of doing so. Occasionally the Bureau of Child Welfare has been of assistance in finding a foster home for a negro child or has wired the Colored Orphanage at Oxford to help in an emergency. Until the Training School for Colored Boys become a reality—and one for colored girls is inaugurated—the problem of the delinquent and neglected negro child will not have begun to be solved.

Since there are fourteen counties in the State with no social worker (paid by county taxes) other than the superintendents of schools, and fourteen others where there is only one such worker in addition to the superintendents of schools, referring a case back to the county means losing it or leaving it to become a drag on the community. This condition has shown the necessity for building up intelligent public interest in the solution of social problems. The good heart needs the trained head.

CORRESPONDENCE COURSE

Because of the small salary paid most welfare officers, and the expense of special training, it was felt that some plan must be devised for making social training available to the men and women in the field. To meet this need a Correspondence Course in Family Problems has been prepared by the School of Public Welfare at Chapel Hill and the State Board of Charities and Public Welfare at Raleigh, and will be sent out by the Extension Department of the University.

A correspondence course in social work is pioneer work, but since the University has the machinery, through its extension department, to send out material to serve the superintendent of public welfare who is already in his field with his work around him, the course seems feasible.

The course is divided into three parts:

1. Principles of Social Treatment in the Home.2. Fundamental Problems in Family Life.3. The Family and the Community.

The object of the course is to make social work as practical as possible, to reduce scientific theory to workable dimensions, and to illustrate by actual family records what is capable of being done in the rural counties of North Carolina which lack social agencies.

Another outcome of the study of case work is the monthly report on vagrant families.

TRANSIENT CASES

Realizing the need of some system of keeping up with the numerous families and individuals who drift from county to county and mill to mill, living on charity and increasing immorality, a plan of action was outlined at the Summer Institutes of Public Welfare at Chapel Hill. This plan, a sort of clearing house of information, is known as the State Monthly Report of Transients. Cards giving confidential information on cases that drift through the offices of the superintendent of public welfare each month, are mailed into the Bureau of Child Welfare. At the end of the month the facts on the cards are multigraphed and mailed to the superintendents of public welfare, associated charities, travelers' aids and Red Cross secretaries. The report also contains the names and records of persons soliciting aid for organizations not chartered by the State Board of Charities and Public Welfare.

Already three vagrant families have been rounded up, thoroughly investigated, treated medically where needed, put to work, sent to the roads, or broken up as the case demanded.

Among the 1,280 children reported to the State Board were many cripples. Twenty-one have been referred to the Orthopaedic Hospital.

CRIPPLE CENSUS

Because of the ignorance in regard to the problem of cripples in the State, the Bureau of Child Welfare in conjunction with the Department of Vocational Rehabilitation, put on a state-wide Cripple Census from October 30th to November 4th. The object of the census was to find the number of cripples, adults and children, in the State who were eligible for treatment, training or both, and to locate the children between the ages of 14 and 16 who, under existing laws, cannot be cared for by the State Orthopaedic Hospital nor the Department of Vocational Rehabilitation. Many children can be cured of slight defects while their bones are plastic, which if left will become permanent handicaps. It is hoped by securing this information to be able to place all eligible cripple adults in the way of making a living and to secure treatment and training for children, and to reduce our future crop of professional beggars.

Still another eye-opener in case study is the number of fatherless children.

MOTHERS' AID

Interest in mothers' aid increased enormously in the last two years. More and more the general public is beginning to mean, as well as say, that a child needs home care. Knowing the limited capacities of our orphanages, superintendents of public welfare are realizing the absolute and pressing need of keeping mothers and children together and of helping fathers find temporary homes for motherless children.

Proof of the intelligent interest in the work is the fact that the North Carolina Orphanage Association passed resolutions at its last two annual meetings endorsing such a bill. The Thomasville Orphanage itself is helping 30 mothers keep their children with them; The Improved Order of Red Men is aiding 150 Mothers' Aid cases. One superintendent of public welfare gets $200 a month from his county commissioners for this work, and additional aid from other organizations. Another superintendent is aiding 35 widows through county, church, and private funds. Numerous other superintendents are doing the work on a similar scale. On Tuesday, December 1st, a number of representatives from various civic and fraternal organizations met in Raleigh and pledged their support toward securing a Mothers' Aid bill.

To make such work effective the appropriation will have to be sufficient to provide not only funds necessary to finance the cases needing help, but also to employ trained, common-sense investigators and supervisors. Neither provision for all cripple children in the State nor Mothers' Aid will solve all our problems. There is still the child who needs temporary care for a variety of reasons.

DETENTION AND RECEIVING AND TEMPORARY BOARDING HOMES

The last two years has seen a development of interest in regard to the temporary care of dependent and neglected and delinquent children. The growth of institutions for work of this type is a problem worthy of serious consideration. Receiving homes, to use a broad term, are needed, if not in each county, certainly in different sections of the State. Such homes should serve as clearing houses for the children of the county, or section, who must be cared for temporarily. Here the children should stay until each child can have a thorough physical and mental examination. Provision should be made for school work during this period, in case the child must stay some time for treatment or study. From the home he can be sent to the place best suited to him. It may be that he should go to an orphanage, Jackson, Samarcand, Caswell, be returned to relatives or placed in a foster home through the Children's Home Society.

Several counties are starting projects of this sort under different names: Detention Home, Children's Home, etc. Only one county, Durham, has gone at it from a sound, economic, social and financial viewpoint. Durham has made her plans first. Others bought houses in
response to emergency demands. The great danger in such a home is that it become a “catch all” rather than a clearing house.

Temporary homes, in which children can be boarded for longer periods, six months and more, as members of selected families, are much needed. This type of work is of great importance in helping fathers solve the problem of caring for motherless children. It is also of great help in cases of sickness among the old members of a family. Children convalescent from the Orthopaedic Hospital often need temporary care before they can again fit into the crude homes from which they were taken. Neglected children of tubercular parents can often be built up in health and made useful citizens by intelligent care in a temporary home—this too without danger of contagion to the household.

PARENTAL SCHOOLS

Closely related to the receiving home idea is the parental school. Frequent and urgent requests come for schools to which to send boys and girls from 10 to 16. Boys and girls who have outgrown such parental authority as exists, who can find no sane outlet for their vitality in the small town and who are headed for Jackson or Samarcand unless they are taken in hand. It is not fair to a child of this sort to bundle it off to a correctional institution until the parental method has been given a good try out. This is the point at which our orphanages can be of great benefit if they will extend their age limit to 14. If not the orphanages, then the State has a great opportunity for service. In the next few years much could be done for the larger boy or girl who started wrong. Such a school would help decrease materially the lists of unmarried mothers and unnamed infants in our maternity homes.

FACILITIES WHICH WILL HELP TO CONSERVE NORTH CAROLINA'S BEST CROP HER CHILDREN

1. In every county a clerk of the court elected partly because of his qualifications to serve as judge of the juvenile court.

2. In cities with a population of 10,000 or more a separate juvenile court with necessary probation officers.

3. Clinical facilities for giving mental and physical examinations to children who come under the supervision of the court.

4. Whole-time superintendents of public welfare in every county, appointed on account of personal qualifications, training and experience.

5. Such adequate assistance as the superintendent of public welfare in the larger counties needs to serve the entire county.

6. A State training school for colored delinquent boys and provision for caring for colored mental defectives.

8. An adequate parole system for juvenile delinquents and defectives released from State institutions.

9. Some institution to be interested in the problem of the dependent child over twelve years old.

10. Adequate support of child-placing work.

11. Mothers' Aid which will prevent separation of mother and child for reasons of poverty only.

12. Above all for every community to realize that it is much cheaper to FORM boys and girls than it is to REFORM them. This is the duty of the home, the school, the church, the community in general. The juvenile courts and the welfare officers get the failures these institutions are making.

BUREAU MENTAL HEALTH AND HYGIENE
ORGANIZATION AND PERSONNEL

The Bureau of Mental Health and Hygiene came into existence as a result of the general policy of the State Board of Charities and Public Welfare to establish, as integral and coöperating units of their department, various bureaus specialized to handle particular aspects of social problems. Many of the nonadjustments and maladjustments of individuals to the social group (family, school and general community) in which they are living are the result of mental inadequacies or peculiarities, therefore the services of a bureau, whose personnel specializes in the study of such inadequacies and peculiarities of mental equipment may be of value, both for the diagnosis of cases of nonadjustment and in the suggestion of methods of readjustment.

The active history of the Bureau dates from the first of September, 1921, when the employment of the present director on a one-third time basis became effective. Since that time the personnel of the Bureau has been increased by employing, from time to time, as special press of work required, beginning with November 1, 1921, Mr. W. D. Glenn, Jr., as assistant psychologist. From January 16, 1922, Miss Margaret Fitzgerald has been serving, on an approximately one-half time basis, as secretary for the bureau.

ACTIVITIES

In keeping with the plans of the board, it has been the aim of this bureau to extend its services wherever there has been a call. The requests for the assistance of the bureau have, however, been so numerous that, with its small staff it has been unable to take care of all even of the urgent cases. During the period covered by this report—September 1, 1921, to June 30, 1922—the staff of the bureau has held case conferences, conducted mental examinations, suggested disposition of cases, made partial family history studies, and through addresses to public meetings assisted various local agencies in the promotion of a better understanding and handling of mental cases. Various amounts and combinations of such services have been rendered private individuals, a local Red Cross, three different State institutions, five public schools, three private orphanages, the State University School of Public Welfare, and four county superintendents of public welfare. Conferences also have been held with institution and public school officials on the problems of more adequate provision for the future recognition and handling of abnormal and subnormal individuals. In addition, the bureau has made a special study of the mental status of all of the white inmates of seven, and nearly all of an eighth county home.

The date of the first mental examination made by this bureau was October 14, 1921. The total number of cases examined up to and

THE FEEBLEMINDED BREED FEEBLEMINDED WE PAY THE COST

The children of feebleminded parents will be feebleminded. When we allow the feebleminded to have children, we should realize that, in most cases, we will have to pay the cost attending the birth of the children, and of their maintenance throughout their lives.

The above picture was taken at a county home on February 24, 1922. The woman at the right of the group, who has a mental age of only four years and four months came to the home about thirty-five years ago to give birth to the woman on the left, whose mental development never has reached, and never could reach a level higher than that of a child about five and a half years old. Mother and daughter have been cared for at public expense at the county home ever since. Moreover, during this time, the county has stood the expense of the daughter's giving birth to an illegitimate child.

The father of this child was a man whose mentality was so low that he was not able to be of service on the county road gang, to which he had been sentenced. So to be rid of him he was sent to the county home to finish out his term. The child resulted.

The other two women in the group are both feebleminded.

including June 30, 1922, was 575. Of this number, however, 170 were not studied individually, but as part of a larger group, were given a preliminary group examination for the purpose of ascertaining those needing a special study.

Table I (page 49) gives a summary presentation of the numbers and types of cases studied.

While it is impossible to present here much of the detailed work of the bureau, yet there are certain summaries of the more important studies made that will help to show the scope of the bureau's activities.

Orphanage Studies.—At one of the private orphanages all of the inmates, 315 in number, were divided into groups of about forty or fifty each, and given group intelligence tests. In all those cases in which the subject did markedly poor work on this group test, and in which there were general conduct or school records of the institution suggesting that the individual was not adjusted, individual mental examinations were also given. As a result it was found that forty-three were definitely feeble-minded, while forty-nine more were sufficiently inferior in general intellectual capacity to be considered as border line cases, between normality and feeblemindedness, and to require a very special type of training in order that they might be fitted to succeed within the environment of the institution, or in the larger social group into which they will eventually be discharged. Another forty-one were to be classed as dull, and most certainly would have profited by special attention in the classroom and in the occupational field. At least one case was discovered during the course of the examinations that presented symptoms indicating the initial stages of a psychosis. Had we had a psychopathic hospital, this case should have been placed there for a few weeks or months in order that a more intensive study might have been made, and the possible therapeutic measures employed.

At only one other orphanage were any considerable number of cases studied. Here there were examined only the cases that the superintendent or teachers considered special problems. In all there were twenty-eight such cases. Of these seventeen proved to be definitely feebleminded, while six more were found to be borderline cases.

Section C of Table III (page 51) shows the distribution of the general intelligence levels of the 176 orphanage cases who were given individual mental examinations.

Public School Studies.—Very shortly after the organization of the bureau a request came from Elizabeth City that assistance be given them in the study of a number of their backward pupils. Such a study was made of twenty-two of the cases, representing the greatest problems in the school. Some of the cases presented difficulties only in that they seemed unable to learn, while others, in addition were grave disciplinary problems.

It was found that eleven of the twenty-two cases examined were definitely feebleminded, while eight more were borderline cases. In addition to inherent defects in general intelligence, it was found that, in many cases, the children were unable to get as much out of the school training as their inherent capacity should have enabled them to get, and this because of their physical condition. Besides such physical handicaps as enlarged tonsils, there was an appaling amount of under-nourishment. This latter condition was true, not only in the pupils given mental examinations, but seemed to prevail throughout the primary and grammar grades. Thus, in one third grade in which there were twenty-five children many appeared anemic and underfed. According to the statement of the children themselves, there were three-fifths of them who were not getting milk more than once a week, while six of the children never had it. Eleven of these twenty-five children were receiving no eggs, while at least six more received very little, if any, butter. One of the six was a member of a family of nine which had, for the use of the entire family one “stick” (1/4 lb.) of butter each week. Another belonged to a family of eight, in which the weekly butter supply consisted of three “sticks.” In another third grade room visited on the same day there were thirty-two children. Ten of these never had milk, while eight more seldom had it. Ten never had eggs. Only seven out of the group had butter three times a day, and nine had it very seldom. These figures are no doubt greatly understating the conditions as they actually existed, since the children seemed to feel ashamed to tell about how little food they had. One boy from this room, when questioned privately broke down and cried, partly from shame and partly from his condition of lowered vitality. He had only been having two meals a day. He was one of a family of eight, six children, ranging from six to twenty. The father of this family was working in a cotton mill, making $10.10 a week. The mother, who had previously worked and been able to add from $3 to $4 to the weekly family income, was at that time sick and unable longer to contribute. As a result this family never had milk or eggs, and seldom had butter. During the preceding month there had been no butter. Their diet consisted mainly of boiled cabbage, collards, hominy, beans, and occasional pork plates—that is the solid fat of pork, which is the cheapest meat available. They had coffee every meal, without milk, and part of the time without sugar, this evidently helping to deaden the desire for food. The supervisor of the school stated that she knew definitely of fifteen children in the grades who were given, by their mothers, snuff to dip or tobacco to chew, in order that they might eat less food.

As the result of the report made on individual cases and on the general conditions, and through the fine spirit of coöperation of the Parent-Teachers' Association and Mrs. Annie Lewis, Superintendent of Public Welfare, and the very active interest of Miss Sallie Beasley,
Supervisor of Schools, and Superintendent S. L. Sheep, there was established a nourishment kitchen in the public schools. As many as possible of the undernourished children were given milk and crackers both morning and afternoon. There followed a marked improvement in the physical condition of these children, and this in turn, accompanied by the following of suggestions regarding changes in the method of school handling of the individual cases, resulted in a marked improvement both in the school work and in the conduct of a majority of the problem cases.

There appears in Section B of Table III (page 51) a detailed report of the general intelligence level of all of the children examined in the public schools. As indicating how large a part is played by the feebleminded and the backward in increasing the difficulties of the public school teacher and administrator, it is well to note that, of the sixty-eight cases given mental examinations, thirty-one were definitely feebleminded and twenty-eight were sufficiently below normal general intelligence to be classified as borderline cases.

County Home Studies.—A study was made of all of the white inmates of the seven county homes, and of nearly all of the white inmates of an eighth county home. These homes were selected by Mr. Roy Brown, Field Agent of the State Board of Charities and Public Welfare, as representative of the different sections of the State. In all 126 county home inmates were studied. The detailed results of this study, giving the facts as to the mental status of the inmates, the number who were illegitimate themselves, the number who had had illegitimate offspring and the number of such offspring, and the number of legitimate offspring are shown in Table II. The general intelligence level of each of the sixty-eight feebleminded within the county home group is shown in Section A of Table III. The fact that, out of the 126 cases studied, only five were to be considered mentally normal, while in the case of only fifteen more was there any question of doubt as to their being mentally abnormal is very striking. This is especially true when one takes into consideration that five of those concerning whom there was a question of doubt were children who were too young to be given satisfactory mental examinations. These facts mean that 84 per cent of these people are residents at the county homes because of mental abnormality—either insanity, epilepsy, feeblemindedness (in one case drug addiction), or a combination of these conditions.

While the facts regarding illegitimate and legitimate offspring are incomplete, they are sufficiently striking to warrant attention. Deducting from the total figures the data for the normal and for those cases where it was impossible to determine the mental status, we find that of the 106 mentally abnormal or subnormal individuals twelve were themselves illegitimate offspring; that these 106 had had forty-five illegitimate children and sixty-one legitimate children. Considering the same
facts for the women only, of the seventy-one women of abnormal or subnormal mentality, eleven were of illegitimate birth. These seventy-one women had given birth to seventy-six children. Of these seventy-six children, forty were illegitimate births by eighteen of the seventy-one women.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Caswell Training School.—Our present provision for the care and for the training of the feebleminded is entirely inadequate. The Sixth Biennial Report of the Caswell Training School for Mental Defectives states that there is at that institution available dormitory space for 100 more beds than there are funds to furnish or maintain. Even with provision for this item, the institution is able to house only about 400, and has practically no provision for common or specialized training. There are probably, judging from the work that we have done in various county homes of the State, at least 500 to 600 feebleminded in these county homes. There are considerable numbers of feebleminded in the orphanages and in the public schools of the State, and also many feebleminded living at large in the State without the restraining influences of public schools or of any other organized discipline. While not all cases of feeblemindedness need be sent to special institutions, and while not all who are sent there need remain permanently, yet the great majority of all cases do need the benefit of at least temporary training of a special kind, also very many must remain always at the institution. Many others may be so trained at the institution that they, while remaining permanently under institutional supervision, are fitted to live outside and earn even more than their living. A still smaller group of the higher grade cases, showing no anti-social tendencies, might, if rendered incapable of having children, be allowed to take a position in society without any special supervision. This could be done, both with greater happiness to the members of this group, and with greater benefit to society, than by using institutional methods. The particular method of handling each case of feeblemindedness can only be determined after a serious study of the individual.

Our present method of leaving the majority of all the feebleminded, irrespective of the grade of their defect, to shift for themselves, or to be partially cared for in county homes, is excessively expensive. These people get no training, and contribute little or nothing to the economic productivity of the State. At the same time these individuals continue to produce feebleminded children. The figures in Table II are evidence of this. The clearest evidence, however, of the economic inefficiency of the county home method of caring for the feebleminded is the case of a feebleminded woman, who has been a resident of a county home for fifty-one years, having given birth while at the county home to ten children. Two of these children have been residents at the same county home since the dates of their births, nineteen and twenty-two years ago,
respectively, and one of these has in turn given birth at the county home to two children, and was at the time of our study again pregnant.

In the light of these and other considerations, we recommend:

1. That the capacity of the Caswell Training School be increased, so that the institution may care for at least 1,000 or 1,500 cases.

2. That special types of training be employed, suitable to the various types of cases. This should include sensory and motor training for the lower grade cases, and industrial training—farm work, simple carpentry, basket weaving, rug weaving, plain and fancy sewing, laundry and other domestic service training, printing, etc., for the higher grade cases.

3. That the policy be adopted of establishing farm colonies, in which groups of from ten to twenty suitable cases may be placed, after receiving study and training at the institution. These colonies might be either owned or rented by the State, or be owned by suitably trained individuals, who would be paid by and be under the supervision of the State institution.

4. That not only for the greater happiness of the residents, but also because of its value in their mental development, there be provided increased recreational facilities of types suitable for this class of people.

5. That no residents of the training school shall be discharged from such residence until after having completed a satisfactory period of parole of the minimum length of one year—longer periods of parole in individual cases to be required at the discretion of the staff of the training school.

6. That a trained social service worker be placed in supervision of all paroled cases, and that no cases be paroled, or later discharged from parole, without there first being made a determination of the suitability of the environment into which the patient is to be paroled or discharged; and, further, that there shall be required during the course of the parole periodical reports of the patient to the social worker.

7. That there be followed by the Legislature the suggestion found on page 10 of the Sixth Biennial Report of the Training School, “That section 2, chapter 266, Public Laws of 1915, be repealed, and that the following be inserted therefor:

“That hereafter there shall be received in the Caswell Training School, subject to such rules and regulations as the board of trustees may adopt, feebleminded and mental defective persons of any age, when, in the judgment of the commissioner of public welfare and the board of trustees it is deemed advisable. All applications for admission must be approved by the local county welfare officer and the judge of the juvenile or clerk of the court of the county wherein said applicant resides.”

8. That there also be followed the further suggestion, found on page 9 of the above-mentioned report, that there be a revision of section 1,
chapter 281, Public Laws of 1919. But, instead of the wording of the revision suggested in the report of the training school, as follows:

“That the medical staff of any penal or charitable hospital or institution of the State of North Carolina is hereby permitted and instructed to have any surgical operation performed by competent and skillful surgeons upon any inmate of any such penal or charitable hospital or institution when, in their judgment said operation would be for the improvement of the mental, moral, or physical conditions of such inmate of any of the said institutions, and that section 2 be repealed entirely.”

We would suggest that the following wording would accomplish the same end, and would at the same time provide a safeguard, both to the various institutions and to their inmates:

“That the medical staff of any penal institution, charitable hospitals or institutions of the State of North Carolina is hereby permitted and instructed to have any surgical operation performed by competent and skillful surgeons, upon any inmate of any such penal institution, charitable hospital or institution, when in their judgment and that jointly of two other reputable physicians, one of whom is a member of the State Board of Health, or is designated by the secretary of that Board to represent the Board in the specific cases under consideration, said operation would be for the improvement of the mental, moral and physical condition of such inmate of any such said institutions, and that section 2 be repealed entirely.”

State Hospitals for the Insane.

1. That the medical staff of each hospital be increased to such size that each patient at the hospital may have his case intensively studied, not only at the time of his admission, but throughout his residence at the hospital.

2. That the corps of attendants be increased, so that there shall be, on an average, not more than twelve patients to an attendant. In the Goldsboro State Hospital there were this fall only twenty-seven attendants to 700 female patients. In the case of one ward of sixty-five patients there was but a single attendant.

3. That the capacity of each hospital be sufficiently increased to take care of all patients needing hospital attention.

4. That provision be made at the Raleigh State Hospital for the caring at the farm colony of at least 600 epileptics.

5. That there be a renovation of all poorly lighted and poorly ventilated wards, and that in all cases where there are wooden floors unprotected by covering or varnish, that these conditions be remedied. At one hospital the writer was shown one ward so dark that artificial lights had to be used at all times, and he was told that two or three hours after the old wooden floors had been scrubbed that they would still be damp. This ward was only being used because of the necessity, yet there were over twenty-five patients on it.

6. That each hospital employ a sufficient staff of trained psychiatric social workers to study the suitability of home conditions of patients

CLEAR EVIDENCE OF NEED FOR MORE ADEQUATE PROVISION FOR THE EPILEPTIC

When it is necessary to keep a man with one end of a chain around his ankle, and the other end stapled to the floor, because there is no room for him in the epileptic ward at our State Hospital, should we hesitate to increase our facilities for caring for such cases?

The above picture was taken at a county home on February 24, 1922. The man in the picture had been a resident at this home for about eight years—since he had been found to be uncontrollable at the School for the Blind. He had been chained as above most of the time for several years. After repeated attempts to get him into the State Hospital, room has finally been secured. However, there are very many epileptics throughout the State needing hospital care. At the present time our provision is only for about two hundred.

before their discharge from the hospital to their homes, and to keep in touch with the patients and their families after the patients' discharge, to the end that the adjustment of the patients to environment and environment to patients may be as adequate as possible.

The Raleigh State Hospital has already made a beginning in this direction. For over a year it has been employing a psychiatric social worker, and has just recently added a second of these workers to its staff.

7. That in each hospital a thorough and systematic use be made in all cases where possible of occupational, recreational and other methods of psychotherapy, in addition to the usual methods of drug therapy. In this connection emphasis is placed on the recommendation that specially trained workers be placed in charge of each of these phases of therapy, and that more caution be used against the common tendency to let the occupation of the patients be viewed in the light of a financial asset to the institution or to the patient, rather than as essentially a matter of therapy.

The Criminal Insane.—At the present time there are being kept at the State Penitentiary a group of individuals called the criminal insane. At that institution there are neither facilities nor staff for the specialized care and treatment of such cases. Moreover, many if not all of these cases are no more dangerous than the patients at the State Hospitals for the Insane. Some of the cases are not insane at all, but merely low grade cases of feeblemindedness.

This bureau suggests:

1. That there be established at one of the State hospitals a special ward for the dangerous criminal insane, and

2. That there be appointed a commission, consisting of one member from the staff of each of the State hospitals for the insane and the director of this bureau, to make a thorough study of the causes of commitment, and the present mental condition of each of the inmates in the department for the criminal insane; and, further, that this commission decide in each case as to whether the case should be committed to one of the three State hospitals for the insane or to Caswell Training School for Mental Defectives, or to the special ward for the criminal insane suggested in the preceding recommendation. That this commission complete its study within six months from the date of its appointment, and that within two months from the date of such completion all cases now in this group shall be removed from the State Penitentiary, and disposed of as provided for by the recommendations of the commission.

Orphanages.

1. That all orphanages adopt a plan of careful investigation of the mental condition of all applicants for admission, except in the cases of infants where the results of such examinations are less valid, and that
those found to be insane, feebleminded or epileptic be not accepted at the orphanages, but be placed in the special institutions provided for these particular types of cases.

2. That since the higher grade types of feeblemindedness are not easily recognized during the earlier years of life, that yearly reëxaminations be held of all orphanage inmates and proper disposition be made of all non-normal cases.

3. That since the presence of a large number of the feebleminded, in with children of normal intelligence, interferes with the development of the normal children in their cottage life, their school life and on the playground, that all of the subnormal children in orphanages either be segregated in special groups within the orphanage, or more preferably be placed in separate special institutions. In either case they should receive the type of vocational school and general conduct training by which they are most capable of profiting.

TABLE I SUMMARY AND LOCATION OF CASES GIVEN MENTAL EXAMINATIONS SEPTEMBER 1, 1921, TO JUNE 30, 1922

EXPLANATION OF HEADINGS: Illeg.—the number of inmates who were of illegitimate birth; Illeg. Ch.—the number of illegitimate children born to the inmates; Leg. Ch.—the number of legitimate children born to the inmates; In.—insane; Ep.—epileptic; F. M.—feebleminded; Dr.—drug addicts; X—abnormal mental condition, but form of abnormality undetermined; ?—mental condition undetermined; N.—normal mental condition.
TABLE III—DISTRIBUTION OF INTELLIGENCE QUOTIENTS
A. Sixty-eight feeble-minded cases in eight county homes.B. Sixty-eight cases examined in the public schools.C. One hundred and seventy-six orphanage cases given individual examinations.

The intelligence quotient represents numerically the approximate percentage of normality in relation to general intelligence. Thus an individual who has an intelligence quotient of 20, has only about 20 per cent as high a general intelligence as does the average individual. As a general rule, other diagnoses being ruled out, an intelligence quotient of less than 70 or 75 indicates feeble-mindedness.

It is the function of the Bureau of Education and Promotion to keep the people of North Carolina informed as fully as possible of the work of the State Board of Charities and Public Welfare and to promote more thorough education in social science and public welfare for county superintendents and other social workers in the State who may be deficient in technical training for meeting their manifold problems.

The first division of the Bureau's activity, that is, general publicity, is secured by means of news stories sent out to the press of the State; by the monthly publication of the Board's news letter, The Public Welfare Progress; by the printing of special bulletins from time to time; by exhibits at the State Fair and by talks throughout the State by members of the staff of the board.

Promotion of supplementary training for social workers has been accomplished for the last three years by Institutes of Public Welfare held for two weeks each summer at Chapel Hill under the auspices of the State Board of Charities and Public Welfare in conjunction with the School of Public Welfare at the University of North Carolina. These institutes have been directed by Commissioner Kate Burr Johnson and Dr. Howard W. Odum, head of the school.

The purposes of the institutes have been:

To bring together in helpful conference and fellowship as many workers in the field of public welfare and social work as may be practicable.

To study and discuss common problems and programs of public welfare.

To raise standards of work and to stabilize public welfare processes in North Carolina.

To give momentum to the North Carolina plan of public welfare in its effort to increase human adequacy and to make democracy effective in the unequal places.

To provide special days of discussion for officials and workers in institutional aspects of public welfare, prisons, hospitals, training schools, children's homes and the others.

To contribute something to the whole field of public welfare and social progress and education.

All three of these summer institutes have been marked successes, the one held in July, 1922, being the best of the three. All have been well attended and the discussions and lectures have been calculated to help the welfare worker greatly in the solution of his many problems. Distinguished and nationally-known authorities have spoken at these institutes, among whom were (in 1921) Dr. C. C. Carstens, Director of the Child Welfare League in America; Miss Georgia Ralph, of the New York School of Social Work; Miss Grace Reeder, of the National Child
Welfare League; (in 1922) Dr. Hastings H. Hart, President of the American Prison Association; and Miss Grace Abbott, head of the Children's Bureau at Washington. These were reinforced by a number of other prominent speakers from North Carolina and other parts of the South who discussed various problems of public welfare. The Summer Institutes of Public Welfare have now become an established and valuable feature of the work of the board.

The State Board of Charities and Public Welfare issues a monthly news letter, The Public Welfare Progress, which has a large and growing mailing list. News of the board and its activities is also sent, whenever the occasion arises, to all the daily papers in North Carolina, and sometimes also to the weeklies. Striking phases of the work of the board are published occasionally in pamphlet form for distribution. The exhibit of the State Board of Charities and Public Welfare at the 1922 State Fair attracted wide attention. Its most prominent feature was a group of striking posters depicting the costly, criminal and disorderly history of a feebleminded family in North Carolina which had been investigated by the board. Other posters dealt with Mothers' Aid, Cripple Census and needed reforms in the State prison system.

It is of great importance for the progress of public welfare work in North Carolina that the people of the State be made acquainted with the far-reaching significance of the activities of the State Board of Charities and Public Welfare, and that county superintendents of public welfare should be able to receive in their own State necessary supplementary training for their work. This is what the Bureau of Promotion and Education is trying to accomplish.

BUREAU OF INSTITUTIONAL SUPERVISION
PUBLIC POOR RELIEF

This report is intended as a brief preliminary summary of a study of public poor relief in the State which has been in progress during the summer just passed. Early in the spring a comprehensive questionnaire was prepared and sent to the county superintendents of public welfare of the various counties. These local officials, except in rare instances, and these where the work of the superintendent of public welfare has been placed upon the superintendent of schools, have given their hearty coöperation, without which the survey could not have been completed. The survey has been under the direction of Mr. Roy M. Brown. Dr. Harry W. Crane, head of the Bureau of Mental Hygiene and Health, has made a study of the mental condition of the inmates of a representative group of county homes. The School of Public Welfare of the State University is tabulating the mass of facts gathered. This tabulation is not yet complete. A more extensive report will be issued later.

The following counties have failed to return questionnaires: Bladen, Chatham, Greene, Jones, Martin, Pamlico, and Polk. Northampton made no report.

I. COUNTY HOMES

Ninety-two of the one hundred counties of the State maintain county homes for the aged and infirm. Four counties (Bladen, Dare, Pender, and Tyrrell) have homes that are not occupied. One other county (Clay) has recently purchased a farm to be used for this purpose. Burke, Caldwell, Guilford, Halifax, Randolph, Watauga, and Wayne have completed within the last year, or have now in process of construction, new county homes. Johnston, Nash and Vance contemplate building in the near future.

COUNTY HOME FARMS

Practically all of the county homes in the State have considerable farms, or at least areas of land attached. As a rule these farms are poorly equipped with farm machinery and live stock and poorly farmed. Not infrequently the keeper of the home is given what he produces as part of his remuneration for keeping the home. His financial condition is usually such that he cannot furnish the equipment necessary for the efficient cultivation of the land entrusted to him. He therefore proceeds to cultivate a small portion of the land after the inefficient and, to the land itself, ruinous methods of the unsupervised tenant farmer. Only occasionally do we find a county home farm that shows evidence of intelligent management. County homes in the State own approximately 16,000 acres of land. Of this approximately 5,000 acres are reported in cultivation. Eleven thousand acres are idle; 6,000 acres are yielding in crops of all kinds, including vegetables, fruits, live stock, milk, butter, eggs, and meats, a gross income of less than fifteen dollars per acre.

COUNTY HOMES BREEDING PLACES FOR THE FEEBLEMINDED

The above picture is of a feebleminded woman who has been a continuous resident at a county home since January 6, 1918. Yet on September 9, 1921, she gave birth to a child whose features suggest a negro father. In connection with this county home is operated a workhouse to which prisoners of both races are sent. It is practically impossible under such conditions, and in fact under conditions generally prevailing under our present county home system, to adequately segregate the feebleminded.

One of the richest and most populous counties in the State (Mecklenburg), with a county home farm of 525 acres, valued with equipment at $52,800, reports farm products for last year worth $4,095, or $7.80 per acre. Two-thirds of the land was idle. For a tabulation for all the counties see Table 1, page 68.

COUNTY HOME BUILDINGS

County homes in North Carolina include every type and condition of building from wretched shacks to creditable plants, such as the Iredell County Home, the Wake County Hospital, and the more modern new county home in Guilford. A number of counties have the cottage system. The typical institution of this class consists of a group of two-room wooden buildings. A few homes built on this plan have brick cottages. The tendency is away from this type of institution. The newer homes consist of one building or of a group of connected buildings, usually of brick. Thirty counties each have buildings valued at $15,000 or more. Eleven of these each have buildings worth $40,000 or more. Some of the better buildings, however, were poorly planned. Few of them, in fact, show evidences of having been planned by one who had any definite conception of the problems presented by the county home. There is rarely adequate provision for the segregation of the sexes. There is not always complete segregation of the races. Nine counties report hospitals or infirmary wards for the care of the sick. Two of these, however, are not equipped; one is not ordinarily used, and another is now being used as living quarters for inmates. We have yet to see such a ward adequately equipped. The following twelve county homes report complete modern conveniences for all inmates—hot and cold running water, adequate bathing facilities, steam heat, electric lights, and sewerage, including separate toilets for the different races and sexes: Buncombe, Cabarrus, Forsyth, Granville, Guilford, Iredell, Moore, Pitt, Richmond, Rockingham, Wake, and Wilson. The following counties report that they do not have sewerage or sanitary privies of any type: Alamance, Alleghany, Ashe, Beaufort, Burke, Caldwell, Camden, Caswell, Chowan, Currituck, Davidson, Davie, Duplin, Johnston, McDowell, Montgomery, Nash, Orange, Pasquotank, Person, Rutherford, Scotland, and Vance. Of these Davidson reports that the condition is to be remedied, and Nash put in a type of privy that proved a failure. Yadkin provides only one privy for both races and sexes. Montgomery and Washington provide no privy of any kind for negroes.

The furnishings in general are of the crudest sort. A cheap bed—usually a double bed—a chair, sometimes a table—these are the typical furnishings of a room in a county home. Such luxuries as closets, bureaus, or mirrors in the rooms of the inmates are unknown in many county homes. To supply water for drinking there is often a bucket with a common dipper.

SUPERVISION

Supervision of our county homes is generally of a lower type than the equipment. It has not yet become the general custom in North Carolina to pay salaries that will attract the type of men needed for the difficult task of operating a county home. Thirty-seven counties pay the superintendent of the county home less than $100 per month. Nineteen counties pay $600 or less per year. In addition to his salary it should be borne in mind, of course, that the superintendent usually gets a house to live in and board for himself and his family. Twelve counties pay so much per month per inmate. Alexander, Alleghany, Ashe, Brunswick, Caldwell, Caswell, Currituck, Gates, Hyde, Lincoln, Madison, Moore, Pasquotank, Randolph, Rutherford, Sampson, Stokes, Washington, Watauga, and Wayne sell the keeping of the county home to the lowest responsible bidder. Of these counties Alexander, Lincoln, Moore, Stokes, and Watauga have substantial brick buildings, and Lincoln's home is well kept in spite of the unprogressive method of selecting the keeper. As might be expected, therefore, it is not unusual to find a superintendent who belongs to a class only slightly superior to the majority of the inmates. He is rarely in the class with the other officials of the county. He is not the type of man who could be elected register of deeds or clerk of the court. There are a few exceptions, but they are exceptions. Moreover the superintendent in most counties is expected to operate a farm. Often he and his family, and those of the inmates who happen to be able to do a little work, must do all the work on the farm. He has little time to devote to the home itself.

Nineteen counties have paid matrons, usually the wife of the superintendent. One county pays its matron $900 a year; three pay $600; two pay $420; and thirteen pay less than $400. More often the wife of the superintendent serves as matron without pay in her own name. Not infrequently she does the cooking, looks after the inmates and the housework, and cares for several small children of her own.

Two instances in counties in widely separated sections of the State illustrate the type of superintendent and matron that is quite frequently found. In a county in which the tumble-down shacks called the county home are a disgrace, the single occupant, an old half-crazy negro man, was telling the visitor about the fat meat that he had to eat. The keeper flew into a rage and hotly protested that he did not buy fat meat, but “good shoulder meat.” Two representatives of the State Board of Charities and Public Welfare were visiting another county home. The superintendent was away. His wife was working in the cotton field. After a while she came in. She was barefooted. Her baby was nursing as she walked along, and her dress was thrown open from the neck to the waist. Her mother, her mother's sister, and her father's brother are inmates of the home. She is matron without salary.

There is very little supervision as a rule over the superintendent. A representative of the State Board of Charities and Public Welfare was
visiting a county home a few weeks ago. It was his first visit. Some other gentlemen were also visiting the institution that day for the first time. They were the members of the board of county commissioners of the county. The wife of the superintendent who had been matron of the institution for five years did not know at sight the members of her board. It is in fact rather difficult for county commissioners who meet one or two days in the month to give much personal attention to the county home. Few of the counties have yet learned to take full advantage of the law that makes the county superintendent of public welfare the executive officer of the board of county commissioners in the administration of poor relief.

The board of commissioners of two counties, Mecklenburg and Wake, have enacted and had printed rules for the government of their respective county homes. Those of Mecklenburg are very interesting. They are twelve in number. Some of the rules are as follows:

“Second Rule: None of the inmates will be allowed to leave the institution without the permission of the superintendent or matron, and any inmate violating this rule shall be confined in a cell not to exceed one week for the first offense, and each additional offense the punishment to be doubled.”

“Twelfth Rule: Any inmate that takes, conceals or disposes of in any manner anything that belongs to the Mecklenburg County Home, shall be punished by confinement in the cells for thirty days, and for each additional offense the punishment shall be doubled.”

Twenty-six of the inmates of this home, including three children under sixteen years old, are reported feebleminded. Eleven are insane. There has been no careful physical examination to determine to what extent they are otherwise diseased. If one of these feebleminded inmates wanders away from the institution he may be confined in a cell for one week. If he wanders off a second time he may be confined for two weeks. For the third offense he may spend four weeks in a cell, and so on. If one of the inmates steals from the institution, the county commissioners have assumed the power of delegating to the keeper of the county home the authority of sentencing such inmate to thirty days imprisonment for the first offense, sixty days for the second offense, one hundred and twenty days for the third offense, and so on. This rule may be applied without regard to the value of the object taken, concealed, or disposed of. There is apparently nothing to prevent its being applied by an ignorant superintendent in the case of an insane inmate who has a mania for hoarding things. Inmates are reported punished by the superintendent or his helper who is an inmate of the home.

The Iredell County Home, which is one of the best in the State, has two “dungeons”—dark rooms—for the punishment of inmates. It is reported that they are seldom used.

A few of the counties maintain a workhouse in connection with the county home. In fact, it is quite common for Superior Court judges
and others to treat every county home as a part of the State's penal system, and to use it as a dumping ground for cases that they do not know how to handle otherwise. The classes that are most often thus disposed of are women, including prostitutes, and youthful offenders.

THE INMATES

We have in round numbers 1,500 people in county homes in the State. Of these the county superintendents of public welfare estimate that more than 500 are feebleminded. They report 130 feebleminded women of child-bearing age. The investigations of Dr. Crane indicate a much larger percentage of feeblemindedness. Of one hundred and twenty-six white inmates, in eight county homes scattered through the State from Carteret to Watauga, sixty-eight were feebleminded, seventeen insane, two epileptic, one a drug addict, eighteen were distinctly below normal, due either to congenital feeblemindedness, senile deterioration, or paralytic dementia, fifteen for one reason or another could not be adequately tested, five were classified as normal. (For a detailed discussion of this study see under Bureau of Mental Hygiene and Health.) These figures indicate that eighty-five per cent of the inmates of the county homes are mentally abnormal.

Of the total number of inmates, more than four hundred are reported sick. Paralysis, tuberculosis, syphilis, gonorrhea, and cancer are among the more serious ailments.

The 1,500 inmates of county homes, as has been suggested, are distributed among ninety-two institutions. In many of these institutions the number of inmates is very small. Seven of the ninety counties reporting do not maintain county homes. They are Bladen, which has a home not occupied; Clay, which has recently purchased a farm for a home; Dare, which has a home not occupied; Graham; Hoke, Jones, and Tyrrell, which also has a home not occupied. Pender and Currituck report each one person in the county home. Seven other counties have fewer than five. Twenty-four have from five to ten each. Seventy-two have fewer than twenty-five; and only five have over forty.

Not only is the number of inmates in the larger number of county homes very small, but the ratio of indoor paupers in the State is decreasing. In 1900 the ratio for the State was 76 per 100,000 population, and the modal ratio by counties, that is, the ratio which occurs in the largest number of counties, was between 90 and 100. In 1910 the ratio for the State as a whole rose to 96 per 100,000, but the modal ratio by counties fell to between 80 and 90. In 1920 the ratio for the State was 60, and the modal ratio by counties between 60 and 70. In other words, in the typical county in the State there were fewer paupers in proportion to the population in the county home in 1920 than there were ten years before, and fewer ten years ago than twenty years ago.

These figures do not necessarily prove that there are not enough destitute in the several counties to warrant the maintenance of a well equipped and efficiently managed county home in every county. There may be many people in need of the care of such an institution who are now being neglected. No doubt as the State's plan of public welfare develops, with a trained superintendent in every county, many needy cases will be discovered; but it is probable that a larger number will be found who by wise social work may be made self-supporting. In other words, as our plan of public welfare develops the ratio of paupers should continue to decrease.

In view of these facts—of the inadequate equipment of most county homes, of the type of management, of the lack of adequate and intelligent help within the institution, and of the general lack of supervision—it is to be expected that conditions will not be good. Often the inmates care for their own rooms, apparently without supervision. Sometimes, in the same institution, one room will be clean and well kept while the adjoining room is horribly filthy. In some of the homes there is no central dining room. Meals are served in the rooms of the inmates. There is often no hurry about cleaning up after the meal. The remains of the coarse and meager meal are a feast for the flies.

That the type of institution, or the type of superintendent, or both, are poorly fitted for the care of the feebleminded who, as has already been pointed out, form a considerable part of the county home population, is indicated by the following facts and incidents:

About three years ago a feebleminded youth of nineteen, and a feebleminded woman of seventy, inmates of the Forsyth County Home, strayed down to the office of the register of deeds, procured a marriage license, looked up a Methodist preacher, were married, went—presumably on foot—for a short bridal tour, and then returned to the county home, where they have been living happily ever since. Luckily they were not both nineteen.

In Davidson County a man was sentenced to the county chain-gang. He proved to be so feebleminded that he could not be used on the roads, so he was transferred for the remainder of his sentence to the county home. There he formed an attachment for a feebleminded woman thirty years old, herself born in the county home. A child was born as the result. Fortunately it died.

In Watauga County a few years ago, near Blowing Rock, an old feebleminded man and a feebleminded girl were found living together without the formality of a marriage ceremony. The good people of the community arose in indignation and sent the offenders to jail. A few weeks later they came up for trial before the Superior Court. The Judge threw up his hands and said, “I don't know what to do with this case.” Some one suggested that they be allowed to get married. A lawyer passed the hat and collected the money to buy the license. A
justice of the peace was called from the crowd in the courtroom. The pair were married. Within the next few years three children were born. The old man died. The woman and two of her children were taken to the county home. She has since given birth to two other children in the county home, and she is still a young woman. She has a mental age of about six years.

A generation ago there came to the Nash County Home a woman and her daughter, a young girl. This feebleminded girl grew up in the county home. She is now an old woman. She has given birth in the county home to ten children, one of whom is colored. Some time—at the suggestion of the superintendent of the home, one version of the story goes—she married a misshapen, feebleminded inmate of the institution. He thinks he is the father of two of her ten children. Two of the ten children died in infancy. Six were placed. Two are in the county home. One of these, a young woman about twenty-four years old, is the mother of four children, including twins only a few months old. In fairness to the county home, it should be stated that she was out of that institution for a few weeks about the time of the conception of the twins.

Forty years ago a girl in Montgomery County was so paralyzed at the birth of her first illegitimate child that she has never walked since. Soon after the occurrence she was taken to the county home. Ten years later she gave birth to a second child by a man who lived near the county home. She has since married successively two inmates of the county home. Both are dead. The father of her second child has for a number of years been an inmate of the home. Six years ago he married a feebleminded woman thirty-five years old, also an inmate of the home.

The following story was told a few weeks ago by the keeper of the Scotland County Home. Within the last year there was among the inmates of the home a negro man forty-five years old, who was being treated by the county physician for syphilis. He began paying attention to a negro woman, also an inmate. The keeper heard it rumored that they were to marry. He did not discourage it, as the man seemed to be getting better, and the keeper thought he might make a good tenant on the farm. Illicit sex relations between the couple were discovered. The man left, but returned in a few days, when he was told by the keeper that he must leave, and that the woman must also go as soon as she was able. The man left, but returned in a day or so with a buggy and took the woman.

Durham County maintains a combination county home and workhouse. Both men and women are sent to the workhouse. A few months ago a low-grade feebleminded white girl, an inmate of the county home proper, gave birth to a child, evidently of negro parentage. The only explanation is the presence of negro prisoners.

In Burke County a few months ago an imbecile negro girl, who was herself born in the county home, gave birth to a child by a white father.

Some of these, of course, are striking cases of their type, but the type is by no means rare in county homes in North Carolina. In fact as one goes into the history of the various county homes for a few years back, it seems that the county home is fortunate that has not had its scandal in connection with a feebleminded inmate.

Another phase of the problem of feeblemindedness in which the county home is not only failing to function efficiently, but has sinned most grievously against society, is in the disposition of the children of subnormal mothers. It has been the custom to give these children to practically any one who would take them. Of the ten children of the old woman in the Nash County Home, two died in infancy, two are still at the home, and six have been placed, some of them fairly well, but at least two of them shamefully. These particular children were placed several years ago, but the practice, common all over the State, has continued to the present day. Twenty-two children under sixteen years of age, who were born in county homes, are included in the county home population. Ten other children were born in county homes in 1921. Of this total of thirty-two, twenty-seven are illegitimate.

The county home is also failing in its attempt to care for the sick. A very few counties employ a practical nurse. None have trained nurses. Usually the wife of the superintendent gives such attention to the sick as she can with her other work. Sometimes she does not know how to care for them; sometimes she may not be as much interested as she should be. The county physician in many instances does not make regular visits to the county home. He is called in in case of what appears to the superintendent serious illness. In one of the best managed county homes in the State there is a small room well stocked with drugs which the superintendent himself doses out to his wards when they are ailing.

In a certain county home in the State in one room of a two-room cottage lies an old man with cancer of the stomach. There is no matron in this institution and no nurse. The superintendent looks after the 400-acre farm belonging to the county home, and a farm of his own. He is at the home but little except at night. In the meantime the old man lies there without attention. When a Red Cross nurse visited the home with the idea of instructing some of the inmates in looking after the others, she found no one able to work, with intelligence enough to follow instructions. And the old man continues to lie there without attention. The odor that comes from the room is such that it is difficult to approach within a radius of twenty yards from the door.

FOOD

There is usually, we believe, an honest effort to furnish to inmates of county homes a sufficient amount of such food as the wife of the superintendent knows how to prepare or has been accustomed to herself. This
does not mean that inmates of all county homes are properly fed. In almost every case the superintendent reports that he raises plenty of vegetables, but often a look at the county home garden is proof that he does not appreciate the meaning of plenty of vegetables. The average county home farm produces no meat except hog meat, and an occasional chicken for rare occasions, and the average county home table knows no other kind. “Wouldn't it be possible for us to have just a bit of red meat once in a while?” begged an intelligent negro girl in an advanced stage of tuberculosis of the chairman of the board of commissioners in a certain county a few weeks ago. This county home farm contains 175 acres. The county has no live stock on this land. No provision has been made by the county to insure a supply of milk or of eggs. There is not an adequate supply of either. This is a typical county home.

RECORDS

Section 1337 Consolidated Statutes reads: “The keeper or superintendent in charge of each county home in North Carolina, or the board of county commissioners in each county where there is no county home, shall keep a record book showing the following: Name, age, sex, and race of each inmate; date of entrance or discharge; mental and physical condition; cause of admission; family relation and condition; date of death if in the home; cost of supplies and per capita expense per month; amount of crops and value, and such other information as may be required by the board of county commissioners or the State Board of Charities and Public Welfare; and give a full and accurate report to the county commissioners and to the State Board of Charities and Public Welfare. Such report to be filed annually on or before the first Monday of December of each year.”

No county in the State is keeping this record. Most of the county homes have some sort of record of the inmates, usually giving the name, the date of admission, and of discharge or death. A few counties have somewhat fuller records. Some have no records. No county, we believe, keeps a per capita cost account record, or a record of the amount and value of crops. Figures as to crops and crop values given in this report are mainly estimates by the superintendent. In cases where the superintendent was changed at the end of last year and in some others it has been impossible to get any sort of figures. In making statements as to the cost of county homes, county officials commonly ignore the value of farm products used in the county home. In an audit recently made for Orange County by a State auditor the products of the county home farm do not appear.

PER CAPITA COST

There is no possible way of arriving at an accurate per capita cost of county homes because, as has already been stated, adequate records are not kept. To the net amount paid from the county treasury has been
added the value of the products of the farm used in the institution as estimated by the superintendent of the home. Where the total value of the products of the farm are less than the interest at 5 per cent on the total value of the plant, the excess has been added. No other allowance has been made for depreciation of buildings or farm machinery. There may be cases where the per capita cost is placed too high. More often, we believe, the error will be in the opposite direction. In every case the figures, as a whole, have been submitted to the chairman of the board of county commissioners of the county in question. The cost per inmate per month for the fiscal year ending November 30, 1921, varied from $2.43 to $89.38. In twelve counties it was less than $15. In eighteen counties it was between $15 and $23; in eighteen, between $23 and $30; in twelve, between $30 and $40; in two, between $40 and $50; in six, between $50 and $60; and in four over $60. For the other counties it has been impossible to obtain figures. The per capita cost per month of the State Hospital for the Insane at Raleigh for the same period was $23.30. In forty-two county homes the per capita cost was greater than the per capita cost at Dix Hill.

Measured by any decent standard of social efficiency the county home in a majority of the counties of the State is a failure. From the very nature of the problem it cannot be a success. The number of paupers in county homes in most counties is so small that it is not economical to maintain them in well-kept county homes. The ratio of paupers in county homes is decreasing. The class of inmates is such as to require a type of institution widely different from the present county home, and a type of supervision vastly superior to the present type. The average county does not feel able to maintain an institution of the type needed. Few boards of county commissioners would dare attempt to maintain the type of home suggested in this report—a home that provides for the proper segregation of races and of sexes; for the segregation of the various types of infectious diseases; and for adequate facilities for the care and treatment of the sick. In such a home there would be a superintendent who in general ability and intelligence would be the equal of the best of the courthouse officials. There would be a matron paid for her whole time. There would be one or more practical nurses. There would be a cook and such other helpers as might be necessary. There would be thorough medical supervision by the county physician. This we believe is the minimum. Three-fourths of the counties do not have enough paupers to warrant the maintenance of such a home. More than half of the remaining fourth think they cannot afford it.

In this case, as usual, it is easier to state the problem than to find the solution. The State should, and probably eventually will, develop its facilities for caring for the feebleminded, so as to relieve the counties of this burden, especially in the case of children and younger adults, including all subnormal women of child-bearing age. The time is not
far distant, it may be, when the State will make provision for the care of the indigent sick who may be relieved by medical or surgical hospital treatment. The hospitals for the insane are being enlarged, and the county homes must be relieved of the violently insane and of all others who may profit by hospital treatment. There will still remain the aged and the infirm. Decreasing the numbers makes the solution of the problem by county units rather more than less difficult.

Several students of the question in other states of the South where conditions are similar to ours, as well as in our own State, have come to the conclusion reached in this study; namely, that the average rural county has too small a number of paupers in the county home to make the maintenance of a home of the proper type economical. Notable among such students is Rev. G. Croft Williams, formerly secretary of the Board of Public Welfare of South Carolina, and now professor of sociology in the University of South Carolina. Mr. Williams suggests a district hospital-home, an institution combining the ideas of the hospital and the home, and serving a number of counties. Some such institution it seems to us is practically the only solution. The idea is not new in North Carolina. In 1915 Mr. J. J. Laughinghouse, of Pitt County, secured the passage of a law providing for such a district composed of eleven counties in the northeastern part of the State—Beaufort, Chowan, Dare, Gates, Hertford, Martin, Pasquotank, Perquimans, Pitt, Tyrrell, and Washington. This law provides that these counties shall jointly build and operate an institution to be known as “Community Home Number One for the Aged and Infirm.” This home has not been built.

There are objections to such a plan. The most frequently urged are the following: First, the district home would take some of the inmates a considerable distance from their homes, so that their friends could not easily visit them. Second, it would be a step toward further centralization of governmental powers, and away from local self-government. Third, the district home would cost more.

The first objection seems, until it is studied rather carefully, more formidable than it really is. Except in rather rare cases the visits of friends may be dismissed, because such visits are rare enough to be negligible. These simple people, especially if they be old, often do feel a shock at being removed from the immediate neighborhood of their old homes; but in most cases, after the journey is taken, it probably would make little difference whether the new home were twenty or a hundred miles away.

The second objection, translated into plain, every-day language, means that some fellow in the county may lose a job, or that a county office may lose some of its prestige. We need to learn that government is a business enterprise undertaken by a whole people. For the sake of convenience, economy, and efficiency, we have various units ranging from the school district to the whole state. Certain enterprises may be
undertaken by the school district. Others may be more economically and efficiently done by the county. Others, such as the employment of a solicitor for the Superior Court, may require a group of counties. Still others need to be backed by the resources of the whole state. The government of the state, or of any one of the larger subdivisions of the state, may be just as much government by the people as the government of the county.

The district home would cost more. This objection is hard to answer because we have little data upon which to base an intelligent discussion. It probably would cost some counties more—it certainly would, because they are not caring for their poor under present conditions. It would cost a number of counties less than they are now spending.

Let us take the district proposed by Mr. Laughinghouse. If we add Camden, Currituck, and Hyde, the other three counties in the First Congressional District, we have a territory with a county home population, taking the average per month for last year, of 89. There are now 77. To care for 80 or 90 people the counties in the district are attempting to maintain twelve institutions. Two others are standing idle. The cost per month per inmate, last year, varied from $14 in Pasquotank to $89 in Pitt. The average for the district was $38.65 per capita per month as compared with $23.30 for the State Hospital for the insane at Raleigh. Only one county fell materially below the cost of the State Hospital. Eight went considerably above. Two more than doubled it, and one cost almost four times as much. For one county (Martin) we have been unable to obtain any figures.

The counties of this district have invested in county homes a total of $157,627. Of this amount $71,867 is the total value of buildings. This leaves $85,760 as the total value of farms and farm equipment. The total cost of maintenance for eleven county homes in the district for the year ending November 30, 1921, was $37,011.57.

Suppose these counties should decide to build one institution. They have property on which they should be able to realize at least $100,000 for the central plant. There would have to be some readjustment as to the proportions of the maintenance fund raised by the various counties, but with the total they could meet the following budget:

Superintendent$ 2,500.00Matron1,500.00Two practical nurses2,500.00Physician's services1,500.00Board, etc., at $20 per month per inmate21,360.00Miscellaneous1,000.00Surplus6,651.57Total$37,011.57Present expenditure for maintenance of eleven county homes$37,011.57

In selecting a congressional district we do not intend to suggest that the congressional district furnishes the best unit for the district hospital home. The almshouse district should be geographically more compact. We mean merely to suggest that a small number of district homes of a creditable type may be operated at about the same cost as the present large number of county homes.

II. OUTDOOR RELIEF

In addition to those supported in the county home, all except a very few of the counties give aid to a number of persons on the outside. Of the counties reporting, Craven, Hertford, Macon, Swain, Warren, and Washington, have no outdoor poor aided by public funds. In the other counties the average number per month who were given aid for the year 1921 varied from two in Tyrrell to 240 in Robeson, and the total amount spent from $109 in Lenoir to $11,250 in Robeson. The amount given is usually very small, varying from one to ten dollars per month. In a very few instances a larger amount is given. The most common amount is two or three dollars a month. Not infrequently the amount is as low as one dollar per month. Outdoor relief has been administered in the loosest sort of manner. Persons have been placed upon the list without adequate investigation and money has been paid out to “agents” without adequate safeguards as to whether it reached the ones for whom it was intended. A number of boards of county commissioners have now adopted the policy of giving no aid until an investigation has been made by the county superintendent of public welfare. In the same way a beginning has been made of checking up the old lists. In one county within six months from the appointment of a superintendent of public welfare, twenty-five were dropped from the outdoor pauper roll as a result of her investigations. Under the direction of trained and sensible superintendents of public welfare, outside aid may become the most valuable form of public poor relief—a means of helping people to help themselves.

A table is appended showing for the various counties the number of outside poor on the day of the report in the summer of 1922, the total expenditure for this form of relief for the fiscal year ending November 30, 1921, the largest amount per month paid to one individual (“High”), the smallest amount paid (“Low”), and the most common amount paid (“Mode”).

[Photograph of a woman and child]

This girl, with a slight amount of negro blood, about thirty-two years of age, but with a mental age of five years and six months, came to a county home March 19, 1920, to give birth to this child, whose father was a white. It is probable that both mother and child will be expenses to the county home for many years to come. Unless we change our present law, which does not permit our institution for the feebleminded to care for women after they have reached the age of thirty, and at the same time make provision for the care of larger numbers of this class, we are in danger of having women of this type bring into the world many more children for us to support.

TABLE I—County Home Farms

Number of AcresNumber of Acres in CultivationPer cent in CultivationValue of FarmValue of Farm ProductsValue of Products Per AcreRemarksAlamance755066⅔$12,975$1,591$21.33Alexander10030305,5006006.00Alleghany505103,1002004.00Anson2141005016,4853,01514.09Ashe140755413,0751,90213.58Avery5825433,8752454.22Beaufort1612754,30050031.25Bertie2641304926,0759,70536.75BladenBrunswick10013135,3256756.75Buncombe360751933,8453,0008.33Burke17630114,0006553.72Cabarrus133755616,2003,95029.70Caldwell13030235,9251,88214.47Camden1601,500Carteret11⅔11⅔1001,5401,220104.57Caswell230100438,4001,5006.52Catawba212753512,4004,45521.00Chatham61540Cherokee6015254,5002003.33Chowan140751,5002251.61Clay14010,000Recently purchased.Cleveland3251003133,5006,27519.31Columbus1204033⅓12,9001,86515.54Craven253127,80067527.00CumberlandCurrituck6025422,000Superintendent changed. No record of crops.Dare3400Home not occupied. County gets $60 rent for farmDavidson120504213,1002,20818.40Davie16030195,5005853.66Duplin7020295,6655557.93Durham267.41505718,770No record of farm products.Edgecombe465701527,8006,47813.93Forsyth26815056161,0519,36334.94Farm cultivated mainly by boys' reformatory.Franklin408751822,0505,16012.65Gaston118504211,7504,16235.27Gates803037½2,3001,07013.38GrahamNo county home.Granville150755022,5002,26815.12GreeneGuilford200502531,200Superintendent changed. No record of crops.Halifax400601512,6359802.45Harnett605083⅓6,1003,00050.00Haywood135755627,2003,34924.81Henderson10030305,000No figures on farm products.Hertford6025426,5001,14519.08HokeNo county home.Hyde1615941,6601006.25Iredell2401757339,0009,34130.59Jackson103605815,8252,07220.11Johnston24050212,53010.54

TABLE I—ContinuedNumber of AcresNumber of Acres in CultivationPer cent in CultivationValue of FarmValue of Farm ProductsValue of Products Per AcreRemarksJones$.....$.....$.....No county home.Lee149.5604015,0002,86012.45Lenoir4542934,150Superintendent changed. No record of farm products.Lincoln6025426,50077712.95McDowell600150258,675No figures on farm products.Macon11125232,6754043.64Madison303102,2002006.67MartinNo report.Mecklenburg52517533⅓52,8004,0957.80Mitchell5520363,0001,48827.05Montgomery110874,3001,50013.64Moore355,5002,565Total number acres not given.Nash4121654039,8629,56520.79New Hanover400100254,48211.80NorthamptonNo report.OnslowNo county home.Orange3005016⅔8,8451,0003.33PamlicoNo report.Pasquotank21.5752,500525262.50Pender20010,00022511.25Perquimans156352210,000No figures on farm products.Person299.550162,1117.05Pitt181603345,7505,63531.13Polk775,775All woodland.Randolph170502910,6001,0005.82Richmond3316503,07580024.24Robeson1810564,050Superintendent changed. No record of farm products.Rockingham447601324,4204,0879.15Rowan11950418,1002,06017.31Rutherford590751329,5002,0353.45Sampson160754730,5294,62028.87Scotland2001005015,0004,01120.05Stanly150604012,5001,96013.06Stokes200301510,000No figures on farm products.Surry500751518,6502,7035.40Swain200402011,7006003.00Transylvania97525412,1181,20012.37Tyrrell551002,100Home not in operation. County received $50.00 rent, 1921.Union218401812,6004,02918.48Vance250753011,4502,50810.03Wake100353521,000Warren18035192,5002,95816.44Washington8011,5001001.25Watauga9565684,4501,00010.52Wayne3502005741,8002,4897.11Wilkes152855632,7003,89025.59Wilson2513495,3501,78671.42Yadkin30032116,5001,0003.33Yancey3210341,20056017.50

TABLE II—COUNTY HOMES—VALUE OF PLANT

Total Value of PlantValue of BuildingsRemarksAlamance$16,975$ 400Alexander20,50015,000Alleghany3,600500Anson32,28515,000Ashe15,5752,500Avery4,8501,000Beaufort14,30010,000Bertie32,0756,000Bladen6,0001,000Brunswick10,3255,000Buncombe91,84560,000Burke5,5001,500Contract let for new buildings.Cabarrus16,200Figures incomplete.Caldwell8,8452,500New home in process of construction.Camden2,5001,000Carteret9,0005,000Caswell10,4002,000Catawba17,9005,000ChathamNew home just completed.Cherokee9,2504,750Chowan4,5003,000Clay10,000Farm recently purchased.Cleveland51,50018,000Columbus20,9008,000Craven14,0006,000Cumberland40,38036,000Currituck4,0002,000Dare1,200800Home not operated.Davidson38,10025,000Davie15,50010,000Duplin10,6655,000Durham49,47030,000Durham runs a work house in connection with County Home. Both are included inEdgecombe36,8008,500Forsyth197,30036,250Boys' reformatory included in total value.Franklin27,0505,000Gaston21,75010,000Gates3,8001,500GrahamNo County hone.Granville45,50023,000Greene5,000Figures incomplete.Guilford157,200126,000New home completed within last year.Halifax16,2303,200New home being built.Harnett8,1002,000Haywood43,20016,000HendersonNo report.Hertford10,5005,000HokeNo county home.Hyde4,7603,000Iredell124,00085,000Jackson19,4753,650Johnston16,6501,500New home to be built.JonesNo county home.Lee55,00040,000Lenoir11,0003,500Lincoln36,50030,000McDowell

TABLE II—ContinuedTotal Value of PlantValue of BuildingsRemarksMacon$ 3,675$ 1,000Madison13,00010,800MartinNo report.Mecklenburg98,25051,700Mitchell5,0002,000Montgomery29,30025,000Moore20,50015,000Nash55,20015,000New Hanover47,365New Hanover combines the county home, workhouse and juvenile detention homeNorthamptonNo report.OnslowNo county home.Orange12,8454,000Pamlico1,000Pasquotank9,4176,417Pender10,0002,000Home not operated.Perquimans15,0005,000Person20,000No figures for buildings.Pitt73,65027,900Polk14,7108,935Randolph40,45029,850New home completed within present year.Richmond38,07535,000Robeson10,0506,000Rockingham66,42041,000Rowan16,1008,000Rutherford35,5007,500Sampson34,4542,925Scotland19,5004,500Stanly87,50075,000Stokes40,00030,000Surry30,90012,250Swain14,4002,700Transylvania17,4185,300Tyrrell2,350250Home not operated.Union53,40040,800Vance14,4403,000Contract let for new home.Wake120,300100,000Warren8,5006,000Washington5,6503,000Watauga24,25020,000New home first occupied this year.Wayne46,3004,500New home being built.Wilkes59,20025,000Wilson66,35061,000Yadkin8,0001,500Yancey2,2001,000

Among other things which we inherited from our English forefathers in colonial days was the common jail. The county jails which sprang up in the American Colonies were exact counterparts of the English jails of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, with their reeking filth and vermin infested cells—veritable breeding places of vice and crime. While other institutions have grown and taken on new life with the introduction of new ideas, the county jail has remained practically unchanged. There is, perhaps, no social institution in our State today which is so generally neglected as this surviving relic of an outgrown past.

The modern reader of history is often horrified at the accounts of living conditions in the English jails of the middle ages where disease was rife, and where the dungeon, the thumb screw and the rack were favorite methods of torture. But the reader would be more horrified still if he knew that many of these conditions exist in the county jails of our State today, and these conditions exist because the people do not know what is going on behind prison bars.

In a recent study of some thirty county jails in our State four dungeons were found, three of which had been used within the past few weeks. One of these dungeons has concrete walls, concrete ceiling and floor, and a heavy iron door, with no window, and no light or ventilation whatsoever, except such as might find its way through the narrow crack under the door. In this concrete vault 6 ft. × 8 ft. × 10 ft. only a few months ago seventeen negroes were confined at one time by the jailer. They were too crowded to sit down, and were compelled to stand. That classic illustration of prison cruelty, the Black Hole of Calcutta, where so many English prisoners lost their lives through suffocation, had two small windows in it. This dungeon has none. It is still being used as a place of punishment. No bedding is furnished. A prisoner confined in it is usually kept in total darkness for two days at a time with nothing to sleep on but the concrete floor. This punishment is inflicted not by a court, but by the jailer who assumes such authority to himself without any basis in law.

In another county jail an eleven-year-old white boy was confined in jail for about six weeks for breaking a window pane and a lamp shade in the county home. Several times this boy was locked up in the jail dungeon in total darkness for three or four hours at a time. With a child's instinctive fear of the darkness, and his vivid imagination, what punishment could have been more severe? The jailer seemed to think she had done nothing out of place, and accepted it in a matter of fact way as part of the day's work.

In another jail dungeon, not quite totally dark, a prisoner was confined for four months for fighting another prisoner.

Four other jails among the thirty visited had devices for closing the windows and making the rooms totally dark as a means of punishment. Some of these are used occasionally.

In at least three county jails prisoners are sometimes whipped as a means of punishment. A few weeks ago a member of the staff was looking through the jail in one of our southern counties. In the negro women's ward a negro girl about 17 years old was lying in bed with a bloody bandage around her head. In the presence of the jailer's wife the girl said that the previous day the jailer had beaten her with his black-jack and had “kicked her into a corner just like she was a dog.” The jailer's wife, upon being questioned, admitted that her husband had beaten the girl for cursing her, and when the jailer was questioned a little later he, too, admitted the beating. Prisoners on the floor below told the visitor that the jailer had “beat hell out of the girl.” The attention of the sheriff was called to the matter through a letter, whereupon the jailer's wife flatly denied her previous statements to the visitor, and the jailer himself, a large man weighing well over two hundred pounds and noted all over the county for his bravery, declared that the girl had attacked him and he had to defend himself.

Among other instances of the beating of prisoners by jailers which have come to the attention of the State Board of Charities and Public Welfare is the case of an old white woman, temporarily confined in jail because of drug addiction. It was reported that she was given a severe beating with a strap by the jailer when she became unusually noisy after the drug was taken from her. This old woman is now so feeble she is in the county home. Such treatment is strictly against the law, and is an outrage against every principle of justice and humanity. The following ruling by the Attorney-General is unmistakably clear on this point:

DEAR MADAM:—You asked this office to state fully whether or not the keeper of a county jail has in any way authority to discipline the prisoners confined to his care. The jailer in North Carolina is simply an employee of the sheriff of the county whose jail he keeps. He is not a public officer, but in all his acts in the scope of his authority represents the sheriff. Our court has held with reference to county convicts sentenced to hard labor upon the public roads that they are not subject to flogging by the officer having them in charge. Section 1361 of Consolidated Statutes authorizes the board of commissioners of a particular county to enact all needful rules and regulations for the successful working of convicts upon the public roads. This, of course, does not confer auy authority upon the county commissioners to make rules and regulations even for convicts whose punishment is confinement in the county prison, so of course, much less can they make rules and regulations for the discipline of prisoners untried and imprisoned in the county jail temporarily until trial on account of their inability to give bond. The sheriff himself has no authority to discipline prisoners of either of the latter
classes. It is very clear, then, that when the jailer goes beyond the necessary measures for preventing the escape of prisoners committed to his care, or the necessary precautions for his own safety, he offends against the law. In no sense and in no way has he authority to discipline the prisoners committed to him as an employee of the sheriff for safe keeping.

Yours very truly,JAMES S. MANNING, Attorney-General.

On the whole the laws upon our statute books regarding the care and treatment of prisoners are humane, but these laws are generally disregarded. In many instances the jailers do not know the laws relating to their duties.

Among some of the most important requirements in regard to county jails are the following:

1. Plans for new jails must be approved by the State Board of Charities and Public Welfare. County commissioners, as a rule, are ignorant of this provision.

2. Every county jail shall be provided with at least five separate apartments for prisoners. Only a few jails have five or more apartments, the majority having only three or four apartments. Two jails recently visited had only one apartment, so that there were no provisions whatever for separation of races or sexes. Some of the jails are badly crowded. In one jail twenty negroes were confined in six cells, while in another jail six negroes were locked up in one cell where there were only four bunks.

3. The races and sexes must be kept separate. In four counties the whites and blacks were actually confined together at the time of the visit. In one instance a white woman was confined in the same apartment with an insane negro woman. In another jail when women are confined they must be kept in the jailer's corridor. There are no toilets in the jailer's corridor, so that the women are compelled to use buckets with no privacy except such as the darkness might afford. The judge refuses to send white women to this jail, but negro women are sometimes sent.

4. Every prisoner within forty-eight hours after his admission to any jail must be given a thorough physical examination. Two county physicians claim to be fulfilling the law in this respect. In some counties prisoners are examined for venereal disease within a week or ten days, and if infected with disease, are treated. Several county physicians have stated that they did not know this law was upon the statute books; others explain their neglect by saying this physical examination of prisoners is unnecessary. In most instances the county physician visits the jail only upon call, after the prisoner has become sick enough to be confined to his bed.

5. Sick and infectious prisoners shall be kept separate from the other prisoners. This law is directly dependent for its enforcement upon the
physical examination of prisoners by the county physician as stated above. Without such examination it is impossible to tell what prisoners are diseased. That the enforcement of this law is extremely important is brought out in the following description of a typical county jail in Eastern Carolina:

“There were twenty negro men in the negro ward. Nine of these negro prisoners were being treated for veneral disease by the county health officer, and one prisoner was diagnosed as a positive tubercular. The diseased men were mingling freely with those not infected, and no attempt at segregation was made. In fact the jail had no separate ward where the diseased men could be treated. In some of the cells four men were sleeping—the tubercular prisoner along with the rest—thus allowing to each man about 63 cubic feet of air space, an amount far too small when compared with the minimum set by the State Board of Health of 600 cubic feet of air space for prisoners. The window area of the cell compartments, which should have been one-fifth of the total floor area, was only one-nineteenth of the floor area. The cells were in semi-darkness at mid-day, and such light and ventilation as they had was obstructed by a high board fence. One window was almost totally closed by a mulberry bush growing along side it. There were two lavatories for the twenty negroes, and no towels except a few meal sacks. The diet consisted of soggy rice and baker's bread for breakfast, and cabbage and fat meat for the other meal. The dieting fee was only 40 cents a day.”

6. Each prisoner shall be provided with a clean mattress or tick, sheets, blankets, or quilts. In six county jails visited recently no mattress of any kind was provided. The majority of the jails use cotton mattresses or straw mattresses. A few jails still have canvas hammocks. In only one jail were sheets found. The blankets are generally filthy.

7. Each prisoner should be required to have not less than one general bath every week. Nine county jails recently visited had no bathing facilities whatever; three others had only tin basins or tin tubs. In some counties where the tubs or showers were located in the jailer's corridor the prisoners complained of not being allowed to take a bath in several weeks. Few jails have arrangements for providing hot water for bathing purposes. In a number of jails the plumbing had been out of order for months, and no attempt had been made to remedy it.

Jails as a rule are miserably kept. The floors are seldom swept, and still more rarely scoured. Many are in semi-darkness at mid-day. Crowded together as prisoners frequently are in these dark, dirty cells, with wholly inadequate toilet facilities, compelled always to breathe air laden with the sickening prison ordor and fed upon the cheapest and coarsest food with never a chance to exercise, and constantly exposed to infection from syphilis, gonorrhea and tuberculosis, it is little wonder that these men come out with a grudge against society, and the fixed determination to get even. Most of the prisoners are only awaiting trial. Some of them will be found innocent.

There are a few jails which stand out in striking contrast to this dark picture which has been painted above. The Wake County jail and the
Rowan County jail are as clean as a hospital, and have no odor of any kind. The floors of the Rowan County jail are scoured every morning.

In four of the county jails kangaroo courts were found. A kangaroo court is an organization among the prisoners with three objects in view:

1. To raise money for buying luxuries, such as sugar, cigarettes, safety-razor blades, and playing cards.

2. To enforce certain rules in regard to the cleanliness of the jail and the comfort of the prisoners.

3. To furnish amusement and sport.

Each prisoner on admission to jail is assessed a fee of from twenty-five cents to a dollar by the other prisoners. The penalty for refusal or inability to pay, or for violation of the rules of the kangaroo court is from five to one hundred licks with a belt, or from five cents to one dollar. When a new prisoner comes in who is “broke,” the other prisoners hold him over a barrel or a bunk and strap him. They think this is great sport, and excitement waxes high when a bunch of penniless “hoboes” are brought into jail. Such punishment by fines or beating is extra-legal, and may be subject to abuse among the prisoners. In one instance the jailer was reported as being the head of the kangaroo court, while in two other instances the jailer denied all knowledge of the existence of such organizations in his jail. In all four instances the original set of rules and regulations of the kangaroo courts were secured.

During the past summer negro men carried the keys to two county jails, and at least one of these jails the negro had free access to all wards, including that for white women. Since that time, however, this negro jailer has been replaced. So far as we know the other negro still carries the keys to his jail. In many jails there are negro helpers. When a negro jailer carries the keys, or when negro helpers have access to the women's wards, the embarrassing position in which the women may be placed is seen in the following report of conditions as they existed in a county jail last summer:

“There was no privacy for the women prisoners, white or black. When visitors entered the negro women's cell block, a negro girl was lying half clothed on a blanket at the far end of the prisoner's corridor within full view of the negro jail helpers. Another negro woman was vainly trying to secure privacy while taking a bath in one of the cells. In the white women's ward several of the women were lying on blankets on the floor of the prisoner's corridor. One girl was bare almost to the waist when the negro helper brought the food, and she had covered up her face and breast as best she could lying face forward on the floor. At the first opportunity she ducked for a cell to get more clothing.”

Only one jail in the State has an entire separate ward for women prisoners, with a full-time matron in charge—the Buncombe County jail. The women prisoners do the cooking and housekeeping for themselves, and the matron is doing all in her power to give a homelike atmosphere to the place. The women have the freedom of the house and yard during
the day, and are confined in their cells at night. The matron “takes up” for her girls, and believes in them, which is the best possible foundation for them to make at a new start in life. If the matron can give a touch of home life to this old, dilapidated, worn-out jail building, she could do even better work with the building properly repaired, and no county funds could be spent to better advantage.

The conditions which have been described above in this report are not confined, as some might think, to a few isolated counties. Some of the worst conditions have been found in the counties usually ranked among the first in the State in wealth, in education, and in general progress. It has not been thought advisable to name the counties in this report, but they can be furnished by the State Board of Charities and Public Welfare upon request if there is a legitimate reason for doing so.

COUNTY CHAIN-GANGS

Forty-nine of the counties of the State maintain forces of prisoners who work on the public roads and are usually termed chain-gangs. These forces vary in number from two recently reported from Franklin County to two hundred in Forsyth.

DISCIPLINE

These prisoners are worked under the direction of the board of county commissioners usually, sometimes of the county road commission. In most counties they are under the immediate supervision of an officer known sometimes as supervisor, sometimes as superintendent of the camp. In some counties such immediate supervision is vested in the highway engineer or superintendent of construction and maintenance, who does not live in the camp with the men, and who, in turn, delegates the actual supervision and discipline of the force to the ordinary guards. The senior guard from the point of view of service is the head of the camp.

The most common wage for a guard is around $50 per month. Such a wage, coupled with the class of work that a guard on the typical chain-gang must do does not often attract the type of man who is fit to have charge of other men. The guard is usually without even an elementary education, often practically illiterate. He is ignorant, of course, of any method of controlling men except force. The supervisor is often a man who, on account of a little superior intelligence, or devotion to duty, or mere length of service, has been promoted from the ranks of the guards.

The majority of prisoners on county chain-gangs are worked in stripes under armed guards. A large percentage are worked in chains. Nearly every camp has a small number of trusties—generally called “trustees” by supervisors and guards—who are not in stripes, are not chained or guarded, and have considerable freedom. The law provides that certain offenders may be worked in stripes and that certain others may not be. Most of the counties report that they obey this law. Some do not. At
least one county has a system of its own. Men are put in plain clothes as a reward for good behavior, the supervisor being the judge as to who shall wear stripes.

The methods of discipline most common in chain-gangs are loss of time for bad behavior, confinement, and flogging. Of these the most common apparently is flogging. At least two counties, New Hanover and Rockingham, use dark cells—Rockingham exclusively, and New Hanover for first offenses. The dark cell at the Rockingham County camp was seen by two representatives of the State Board of Charities and Public Welfare early in October. It is 19 inches by 19½ inches by 6 feet. It is constructed of heavy oak boards and partially lined with sheet-iron. There is an opening in the floor six inches in diameter and several inch auger-holes in the top. A man placed in this cell cannot sit down or raise his hands from his sides. The limit of time that a man may be kept in this place is thirty-six hours. The present guards do not remember having kept any one in for more than twelve hours. On the day of the visit a man had been so confined for half a day, and another man had been similarly punished the day before. The offense with which these men were charged was fighting.

Flogging has been abolished as a legal method of prison discipline in every enlightened country in the world except a few of the Southern States. Of these Virginia, Tennessee, Alabama, and Texas forbid it. It persists as the usual method in North Carolina. The law provides that the county authorities may make necessary rules for the discipline of prisoners working in chain-gangs. And the Supreme Court has said that unless specific rules have been enacted by the county commissioners, flogging is unlawful. Such rules have been enacted in only two or three counties, so far as the State Board of Charities and Public Welfare has been able to learn. Prisoners are whipped in nearly every county that maintains a chain-gang. They are whipped for trivial offenses. One county commissioner naively boasted a few days ago that swearing is not allowed on the chain-gangs in his county. If a prisoner swears he is whipped. Not only is flogging common throughout the State, but brutal beatings are not uncommon.

HOUSING

Three types of prison camps are in use for county chain-gangs in the State. The most common perhaps is the steel cage on wheels. This has the advantage of being easily moved from place to place, and of making it unnecessary to chain the men. The only protection against storm, however, is to let down heavy canvas covers over the sides. If they are let down for a storm early in the night, usually no one troubles himself to put them up again in case the storm subsides before morning. In the meantime the eighteen men crowded inside must suffer from want of ventilation. Moreover, the men are often confined in the cages on rainy
days and Sundays, without exercise and with scarcely room to do anything except lie in their bunks. Next in number are wooden buildings. These are of various types. Sometimes a house built for some other purpose is adapted to the use of the camp. But whatever the type of building the interior arrangement is much the same. The men sleep in continuous rows of double bunks. Often they are in two tiers, one above the other. Occasionally tents are used. In both of the last two types of camp the men are chained. An exception is made in the case of a few trusties.

SANITARY CONDITIONS

The beds in the typical camp are dirty. The regulation that prisoners must be furnished night clothes is ignored or obeyed in a most haphazard way. The sanitary conditions about the kitchen are often little better. At a camp in one of the wealthier counties, when visited by a representative of the State Board of Charities and Public Welfare, food was regularly passed out at an open unscreened window of the kitchen over a barrel of slop around which the flies were literally swarming. The following extracts are from reports on county prison camps by various members of the staff of the Commissioner of Public Welfare:

“The screen doors were wide open and the dishes and cloths covered with flies. . . . The cage was indescribably filthy.”

“Three of these were sick men, another the cook, and the fifth a man assisting around the camp. Two of the sick men were confined in one cage, the third one was in an old house that is used as a bunk house at night instead of the cages. The two sick men in the regulation cages have tuberculosis. They have each been in bed a month; one has ten months still to serve, the other eleven. Both of these men have temperatures. No sleeping garments are provided them. They have on the regular convict stripes. The third man has running syphilitic sores on his legs. The tubercular patients have no receptacles to expectorate in, consequently they use the ground, the floor of their cage, and anything that is convenient. There are no screens on the cages or in the kitchen to protect the food. Flies are swarming everywhere. The kitchen is only a short distance from the cage where the sick men are confined; and even nearer the cage than the kitchen is a block of wood on which meat is chopped up. When we visited the camp the meat was laying on this block of wood exposed to flies and dust. The filth of the bedding and the sleeping quarters of this camp is indescribable. The sick negroes were asked how frequently they got clean bed clothes. One negro replied that he had been in bed a month and no clean bedding had been given him. From the appearance of the bed I could well believe this to be true. When asked if he had anything to read, he showed a Literary Digest that somebody had left at camp.”

The sick prisoners referred to in this report were not adequately segregated from the other prisoners.

“The furnishings of the cages are the most meager and the worst I have seen anywhere. The bedding is simply a bundle of filthy rags.”

THE ATTITUDE OF THE PUBLIC

The most hopeless thing about the whole situation is that the public generally accepts such conditions as a matter of course. Shortly after the report from which the last quotation above is taken was made the grand jury in that county made the following report:

“We sent a committee of three to inspect the team camp of the convict force and found that the teams were in excellent condition, well sheltered and well cared for.” [The men at this camp are not mentioned.]

“The grand jury visited the convict camp No. 1 and talked with the prisoners, and they said that they were well cared for and had no cause for complaint. The sanitary conditions surrounding the camp were good.”

This is the camp in which the bedding is described above as “simply a bundle of filthy rags.” Moreover, just before this visit was made two prisoners had been beaten, in violation of law, until their backs were blistered. If the grand jury was composed of men of ordinary intelligence, they knew about that beating. The probability is that they were good men, but that they had always been accustomed to regard brutality as a necessary part of prison routine and filth as inseparable from a prison camp. In this they are not different from the average group in the average county in the State.

ALEXANDER AND VANCE POINT THE WAY

Two counties have shown that brutality is not necessary in prison discipline. Up against the Brushy Mountains, Alexander County, for a year or more, has been conducting an interesting experiment in prison discipline. She found herself with a small group of prisoners that she had difficulty in finding a place for in other counties as had been her custom. It would be expensive for the county to run a chain-gang, but Mr. C. W. Mayberry, chairman of the board of county commissioners, decided that by establishing the proper personal contacts with the men he could work them without guards. He determined to try out his plan. Two men escaped soon after the camp was started. One was recaptured and sent to Rowan County. The other, an old man who was not able to work much and could not be kept employed, has not been recaptured. Since then there has been no trouble. When seen a few months ago by a representative of the State Board of Charities and Public Welfare, Mr. Mayberry expressed the opinion that 75 per cent of the prisoners of his county could be trusted to work without guards, provided he could have half an hour's talk with each before he went out. The results show that Mr. Mayberry was conservative in his estimate. A considerably larger percentage have made good.

When visited in October by two representatives of the State Board the force, now consisting of eight men, had been loaned to the State Highway Commission, and was being used by their patrolman to improve a road in use as a detour. The regular superintendent was on a vacation. There were no guards. The patrolman in charge had no gun of any kind, as he stated in the hearing of all his prisoners. The men
sleep in a camp at night; but they are not guarded, chained, or locked in. They wear no stripes or other uniform to distinguish them from other working men. They sometimes visit their families on Sunday. They report for work at seven o'clock on Monday morning. The man who has the best chance to escape, the cook, was considered a most difficult man before he was sent to the road. He had escaped once after arrest by throwing the deputy sheriff into a millpond, and had finally been marched into jail between two officers. “You are not going to send him to the camp!” exclaimed incredulous citizens when he was sentenced to the road. Mr. Mayberry put the matter squarely up to the man. He has not betrayed the trust.

Vance County has not gone quite so far in some respects as Alexander, but in addition to having perhaps the best kept prison camp from a sanitary point of view in the State, she has gone far enough in the matter of discipline to make a distinct contribution to the prison history of the State. We let Mr. W. H. Johnson, superintendent of the camp, tell the story himself:

“1. All prisoners are required to take a full bath upon being admitted to camp, and given a clean outfit of clothes, consisting of underwear, shoes, socks, blue overalls and shirt.

“2. We do not allow cursing or profane or indecent language, or degrading action of any kind. If this rule is broken the offender is given bread and water for food. This punishment has been used only twice during the past two years.

“3. The same rule concerning profane or rough language applies also to all guards and overseers. If this rule is broken, it means the loss of their jobs. Guards and overseers are required to treat prisoners firmly but kindly at all times. The use of intoxicating drink is not allowed either on or off duty.

“4. We promise our prisoners very little, but always do what we promise.

“5. We allow prisoners all the privileges we can until they disobey. Then we put them under guard and keep them locked up when not on duty. When they are ready to do right, we always give them another chance. If they break faith the second time their privileges are not restored. Our six tractors and five machines are run entirely by trusted prisoners, with the exception of three hired men, who are not guards. The honor system is used as far as possible with all prisoners.

“6. An abundance of well cooked food is served three times a day in a well balanced diet. Vegetables of all kinds are grown at the camp and served every day. Dinner is cooked at the usual time and sent while hot to the prisoners wherever at work at noon. No waste is allowed; all scrap food is fed to the pigs, which supplies a large amount of meat used for the camp prisoners.

“7. The camp is provided with separate shower baths with hot and cold water, for colored and white inmates, and each prisoner is required to take a bath each week in winter and twice a week in summer, and given a clean suit of clothes each Saturday. Many of the prisoners use the bath daily.

“8. Separate sleeping quarters are provided for the races, and separate food service also.

“9. No vermin of any kind is allowed in camp. Bed sheets and all clothes are laundered weekly. A separate hospital building is provided, so that any sick prisoner is at once removed from the others. Sick prisoners are attended by county health physician.

“10. Religious services are held every Sunday afternoon, conducted usually by the superintendent. These services are largely attended by families and friends of prisoners. An effort is made at all times in the treatment of prisoners to give them individual interest, to teach them a high standard of living, and to return them as better citizens to the community.”

“I would have Mr. Johnson add,” writes Mrs. W. B. Waddill, county superintendent of public welfare, “that whipping of prisoners is not allowed.”

In view of the fact that the Citizens Committee of One Hundred representing the North Carolina Conference for Social Service, working in coöperation with the State Board of Charities and Public Welfare will later submit its findings in regard to the whole prison problem in the State no recommendations as to prisons or the treatment of prisoners is made in connection with the reports on jails and chain-gangs.

STATE TRAINING SCHOOLS FOR JUVENILE DELINQUENTS
JACKSON TRAINING SCHOOL FOR WHITE BOYS

This institution will soon have a capacity for 360 boys. Six new cottages have been opened since the last report was submitted or will be in the near future. These cottages have been built by different counties, namely, Guilford, Mecklenburg, Durham, Rockingham, Gaston, Rowan, and Iredell jointly. Building a cottage at the institution allows the county the privilege of keeping as many as thirty boys at the institution, for whom the State provides maintenance. These cottages have been built on the recommendation of local welfare officers as a result of their inability to place many boys in the institution for whom correctional care was needed. The administration building was recently burned, but through the generosity of Mrs. J. W. Cannon, of Concord, the building will soon be replaced as a memorial to the late Mr. Cannon.

Upon completion of the cottages mentioned the State Board does not feel that any further great increase in capacity should be planned, certainly not for the present. It will be rather unfortunate for the Jackson Training School to ever be without a waiting list, for it should not be too easy for welfare officers and juvenile courts to secure admittance for boys. Frequently other and more satisfactory adjustment of cases may be made when it isn't possible to secure immediate institutional care. In addition to this, no matter how good a reformatory may be, for a child to have once been an inmate stigmatizes him to some extent for life. If there is only a limited amount of room at the Jackson Training School welfare officers will naturally be very careful to select such cases for admittance as cannot otherwise be assisted, and the danger of careless commitment will be greatly lessened. Then, too, if an institution grows too large it becomes impossible for the superintendent and officers to have the personal relationship with their charges which is so necessary for their training and development.

The State Board of Charities and Public Welfare recommends that sufficient increased appropriation be given the Jackson Training School to—

First. Employ at least two parole officers whose duty it will be, with such assistance as superintendents of public welfare can give, to investigate each home before a boy is returned for the purpose of finding out whether the boy's own home is the best place for him or whether conditions are such that work should be secured for him in another part of the State; to secure work for the boy previous to his release; to be a restraining and friendly influence in his life until the boy finds his place and becomes adjusted in the community. It must be remembered that few delinquent children come from homes that will be of any great assistance to them upon release, and the work of a correctional institution is only half done when the term of incarceration ends.

Second. To employ a force of teachers specially trained to deal with difficult boys. With an adequate and experienced corps of teachers, a better organization of the school could be effected than is possible at the present time.

Third. To increase facilities for vocational training.

Fourth. To provide an infirmary where sick boys may be isolated and where all boys may have regular physical examinations.

SAMARCAND MANOR, TRAINING SCHOOL FOR DELINQUENT WHITE GIRLS

This institution has also suffered the loss of its administration building by fire during the past year. The pressing needs of this institution are an administration building, a school building, a cottage for small girls, four additional honor cottages, better provision for giving vocational training, and such additional maintenance as is necessary to take care of the increase in population.

In both training schools for juvenile delinquents the State is to be congratulated upon maintaining two exceptionally good institutions.

MATERNITY HOMES

Each of the four maternity homes, Florence Crittenden, Charlotte; Faith Cottage, Asheville; Rest Cottage, Greensboro, and Lindley Training School, Asheville, has been visited and a detailed report made. These investigations proved that the State Board needs to keep in closer touch with the institutions. Little record is kept of the girls who enter beyond their names and addresses, and no systematic follow-up work is done. Blanks have been made out and sent to each institution asking definite facts about the girls and their babies.

It is proposed to have blanks printed for monthly and individual reports early in the year. The next biennial report will include detailed information on the unmarried mother problem, which is not available now.

REPORTS OF STATE INSTITUTIONS

(These reports are for one year and seven months, the result of the fiscal year being changed by the General Assembly of 1920.)

MOVEMENT OF POPULATION FOR THE 19 MONTHS (DECEMBER 1, 1920, TO JUNE 30; 1922)
Number of patients December 1, 19201,069Admitted during period December 1, 1920, to June 30, 1922484Discharged as restored78Discharged as improved148Discharged as unimproved21Died and discharged393Total number in charge during the 19 months (under treatment)1,553Number of patients remaining June 30, 19221,150Daily average number of patients1,116.8Daily average number of officers and employees200Applications on file for lack of room:Insane792Epileptics225Total1,017

FINANCIAL STATEMENT
Appropriation for maintenance$320,000.00Balance appropriation December 1, 1920, to June 30, 1921, not credited by Treasurer and not taken into account for period ending June 30, 192141,666.66Total appropriations (Chapter 86 of 1921)361,666.66Expenditures333,262.80Excess for period—appropriations exceeding expenditures28,403.86Deficit July 1, 192118,566.93Balance June 30, 19229,836.93

MOVEMENT OF POPULATION FOR THE 19 MONTHS (DECEMBER 1, 1920, TO JUNE 30, 1922)Number of patients December 1, 19201,000Admitted during period December 1, 1920, to June 30, 1922516Discharged as cured168Discharged as improved6

Discharged as unimproved12Died175Total number in charge during the 19 months1,516Number of patients remaining June 30, 19221,104Daily average number of patients:Daily average present 1920-1921984Daily average present 1921-19221,018Daily average number of officers and employees90.95Applications on file for lack room:Insane21Epileptics4

(There are many more colored insane and epileptics that need institutional care than this record shows, for whom application is not made. It is generally known that there is no room available.)

FINANCIAL STATEMENT FOR YEAR
Subsistence$ 44,472.96Office and administration10,143.08Medical5,655.90Attendants and nursing18,462.91House15,317.59Engineering36,865.29Construction and repairs36,993.12Farm and dairy17,353.40Laundry and repairs3,413.64Clothing sundries20,513.98Contract repairs647.05General2,525.94Total$212,364.86Balance carried over from December 1, 1920, to June 30, 192146,660.23Annual appropriation220,000.00$266,660.23Spent from June 30, 1921, to June 30, 1922212,364.86Balance$ 54,295.37

MOVEMENT OF POPULATION FOR THE 19 MONTHS (DECEMBER 1, 1920, TO JUNE 30, 1922)
MenWomenTotalNumber of patients December 1, 19207089591,667Admitted during period December 1, 1920, to June30, 1922167258425Discharged as cured5082132Discharged as improved58109167Discharged as unimproved192039Died7784161Total number in charge during the 19 months9201,2872,207Number of patients remaining June 30, 19227129911,703Daily average number of patients1,381Daily average number of officers and employees214Applications on file for lack of room: Insane300

FINANCIAL STATEMENT FOR YEAR JUNE 30, 1921, TO JUNE 30, 1922Sustenance$ 82,380.28Office and administration12,492.82Medical11,626.07Attendance and nursing56,307.36House44,231.65Engineering51,222.31Construction and repairs10,211.09Farm and dairy28,379.88Laundry and repairs16,612.15Clothing sundries22,808.75Sundry and general5,173.66Total$341,446.02Balance carried over from December 1, 1920, to June 30, 192113,030.40Appropriation for June 30, 1921, to June 30, 1922425,000.00$438,030.40Spent from June 30, 1921, to June 30, 1922341,446.02Balance carried over$ 96,584.38

MOVEMENT OF POPULATION
BoysGirlsTotalPresent December 1, 19204368111Admitted during seven months4711Returned from vacation213Total enrollment4976125BoysGirlsDeath00Discharged11On vacation41527Present July 1, 19214474118Admitted during the year4262104Returned from Dix Hill201232Returned from vacation following fires21921Returned from temporary leave of absence6612Total enrollment114173287

BoysGirlsBoysGirlsTotalDeaths23Discharged21Escaped20Out on probation218513Present July 1, 1922106168274

Since the institution opened July 1, 1914, there have been 454 admissions.

(NOTE.—At the time this report is submitted there are not sufficient funds to maintain this institution. The superintendent is selling valuable stock that cannot be replaced at the price for which it was bought in order to provide food for the children. The school has been eliminated for financial reasons.)

MOVEMENT OF POPULATION FOR THE 19 MONTHS (DECEMBER 1, 1920, TO JUNE 30, 1922)
Number inmates December 1, 1920122Admitted during nineteen months144Discharged3Paroled53DiedOther disposition: Absent without leave6Number remaining June 30, 1922215Applications on file for lack of room October 1196Present capacity (available)270Number present270Capacity in few months360

MOVEMENT OF POPULATION
Number of children received between July 1, 1921, and June 30, 1922254Number discharged107Cured and improved94Hopeless10Died3Number patients in charge June 30, 192255Total capacity, 70 beds.

NOTE.—The appropriation for maintenance is not sufficient to carry on the work to full capacity at this time. We trust that the General Assembly will provide ample funds to enable the institution to provide 60 to 70 beds, our full capacity, and thus help us reach the hundreds of crippled, deformed children who are waiting for treatment here.

The institution was opened July 1, 1921. The daily average at this time is 55 cases. Up to October 1, 1922, 378 crippled children have passed through through the institution. One hundred and sixty-six have been cured or greatly improved.

MOVEMENT OF POPULATION FOR THE 19 MONTHS (DECEMBER 1, 1920, TO JUNE 30, 1922)
Number of children enrolled December 1, 1920:White blind115Colored blind53Colored deaf82Admitted during period December 1, 1920, to June 30, 1922:White blind139Colored blind74Colored deaf105Completed the course: Literary 7, music 3, industrial 5, colored department (industrial) 823Discharged: White department 3, colored department 69Died: While in school 1, after going home 34Other disposition: White department 15, colored department 2439Total number in charge during the 19 monthsNumber of children remaining June 30, 1922Daily average number of children:White department120Colored department—blind 72, deaf 102174Daily average number of officers and employees102Applications on file for lack of roomNormal capacity of school (both departments)300

FINANCIAL STATEMENT
Salary and wages from December 1, 1920, to June 30, 1922$103,794.21Clothing from December 1, 1920, to June 30, 19223,393.02Subsistence and other expenses from December 1, 1920, to June 30, 1922108,980.19Total$216,167.42Buildings, etc., from December 1, 1920, to June 30, 1922217,610.90Grand total$433,778.32

MOVEMENT OF POPULATION FOR THE 19 MONTHS (DECEMBER 1, 1920, TO JUNE 30, 1922)
Number of children enrolled December 1, 1920257Admitted during period December 1, 1920, to June 30, 192247Completed the course8

Discharged7Died2Other dispositionTotal number in charge during the 19 months304Number of children remaining June 30, 1922 (attendance close of school)277Daily average number of children (attendance practically constant)Daily average number of officers and employeesApplications on file for lack of roomNormal capacity of school

FINANCIAL STATEMENT Receipts
Appropriations December 1, 1920, to June 30, 1922$174,166.67Earnings and refunds11,723.56$185,890.23Disbursements December 1, 1920, to June 30, 1922162,419.21Balance$ 23,471.02

CHILDREN'S HOME SOCIETY OF NORTH CAROLINA, INC. GREENSBORO
Report for nine months ending September 30, 1922

JOHN J. PHOENIX, Superintendent

POPULATION
New cases reported355Adjustments made by superintendents of public welfare69Applications withdrawn41New homes offered for children817New foster homes under investigation267Homes accepted192Homes rejected409Homes withdrawn by applicant79Children received200Children placed191Homes supervised by superintendents public welfare178Homes supervised by representatives of the society423Children supervised by State Board of Charities4Reports received from foster parents542Legal adoptions executed119Children boarded out for lack of room in Rec. Home30Children ran away from foster home1Children withdrawn from homes not up to our standard10Children replaced6Children in Receiving Home September 30, 192236Children in boarding homes September 30, 19224Children in boarding school September 30, 19222Operations for adenoids14Children treated in hospital4Wassermann tests made4Children died during the year2Per capita cost foster home supervision$6.00Per capita cost receiving, preparing and placing 200 children$60.00

FINANCIAL STATEMENT
From cash donations$16,725.74From fees1,264.17From balance January 1, 19222,103.84Total from all sources$20,093.75

Reimbursements for expenditures marked “*” authorized from Permanent Fund, but not transferred to date.

THE WAKE FAMILY

THE WAKE FAMILY

For a period of six months the State Department of Public Welfare has been studying the family history of Joe and Mary, their ancestors and descendants. This study, though far from complete, has already necessitated letters to social agencies in South Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts. Half a dozen counties in North Carolina have been searched for information, and fifteen or more people interviewed. Police courts, county homes, child-placing societies, Salvation Army records, churches, associated charities and other organizations have all contributed toward the following report.

Not because the family is known extensively for its immorality, drunkenness, and filth, but because there may be some decent members, it has been considered wise to use fictitious names.

RECORD OF THE WAKE FAMILY

There are conflicting stories about the ancestry of Joe Wake on the paternal side. The report is that old Peter Wake came from Richmond originally, and that relatives of his name live in Richmond, Petersburg, and Baltimore. Social agencies in these cities report their inability to find records of such people. Another story is that Joe Wake is not the son of old Peter, but was born in Philadelphia some fifty-five years ago, adopted by old Peter and brought to North Carolina. Philadelphia social agencies can produce no proof of this story. It is definitely known that Peter Wake was an excellent shoemaker and something of a genius. He patented a lock. He is reported to have led a wild life in his youth, but to have “repented and served the Lord when he was too old to serve the devil.”

Certainly five children lived in his home—three boys and two girls. “Bud,” the “best of the bunch,” had a reputation for drunkenness, but no police record. He died young. Will died when he was about grown. Of the two girls little is known. One is thought to have married. Both are now dead. Joe was the youngest, and the one responsible for this study. Joe's mother was reported to have been a Miss Moon, of Petersburg, Va. One of her ancestors is commemorated by a statue in that city.

It is impossible to get any reliable information from Joe about his early history because of his physical condition. It is hard to tell now what his original mentality was. Doctors who have examined him think he was undoubtedly born feebleminded. His record for drunkenness is established through police court, county jail and workhouse records. His immorality by his present state—paresis. In addition to what he has cost the associated charities and churches—contributions extending over twenty years—he has cost the county and State $652. He will continue
to cost around $300 a year in Dix Hill as long as he lives. Absolutely no contribution has he made to civilization except the repairing of a few shoe soles.

The ancestry of Mary Hill, Joe's wife, has not been fully worked out. She says she was strong and healthy as a girl, with no sign of the bladder trouble (venereal) she now has. Her mother, Annie Hill, married a Bruce, then a Harvey. Mary and her brothers took their mother's name. One lives in Johnston County and one in Durham. A Bruce brother lives in Wake County. Nothing is known of their mentality and life history. One half-brother, Harvey, an ex-service man, lives in Wake County. Another was in service and has had hospital treatment; he is mentally deficient. Lily Harvey, half-sister, has been married three times and lives in Wake County. She is feebleminded. Her little girl is in some orphanage in the State, so far unlocated. Another half-sister is reported to have been a patient at Dix Hill for a while.

Joe Wake and Mary Hill were married June 9, 1895. They have had eight children. The oldest child, a boy, died of spinal meningitis; the third, a boy, died of cholera infantum. It is doubtful if this order is right, as our system of vital statistics had not been established at this time. The other children are: Sam, Sue, Anne, Bess, Tom, and Jesse.

Although Mary's criminal record seems to have begun about 1911, there is evidence that by 1906 she had used up, in fines, all he could make. Up to that time she had a reputation for drunkenness and filth. As early as 1907 her house was notorious as the “hog house.” She was drunk and her children clothed in rags, played in the green slime in the nearby ditch. There is no record of immorality before 1909. By 1912 she stayed out at night and was known as a dope fiend. Between 1913 and October, 1922, she served 242 sentences in the county jail at a cost of $253 to the county. This cost does not include medical attention and medicine, which she invariably needed. In this same period the cost for her arrests amounted to $68. She spent six months in the State Hospital in 1916 at a cost of $150. Her twelve months (four sentences) to the county workhouse amounted to $190. Mary is in jail at present. Dr. H. W. Crane, who gave her a mental examination, places her mental age at eight (8) years. Mary needs custodial care. She can work when she is sober. Dr. Albert Anderson tried her in the laundry at Dix Hill on wages. She proved she could do manual work, but refused to stay. There was no law to hold her. She appears regularly in the police courts. Until the State provides a reformatory for women, or extends the age limit at Caswell, Mary must continue to be a source of entertainment for the hangers on at the police court.

Sam Wake was born probably in 1896. By the time he was eleven years old he had served two jail sentences and had been in the work-house for petty thieveries. In 1913 he was arrested for burglary in
Edgecombe County. Since then there has been no record of him except the statement from his mother that he was working on a fishing boat near New Bern. He was not registered in the draft.

There is nothing in his ancestry nor early environment to make one think that he is making any worth while contribution to society. On the other hand all evidence points to the probability of his being a burden on society in crime and feeblemindedness.

Sue Wake, alias Marie Jones, the oldest daughter, is reported to have been born in 1898. Before she was twelve years old she had a reputation as a “street arab,” and had served a sentence in the workhouse. Her mother, drunken and filthy, threatened to chain her to the bed post if she did not stay off the streets. In 1910 citizens interested in trying to save children from the life of their parents—this was before Caswell was built—succeeded in placing Sue, two sisters and a brother with the Children's Home Society. For two years that agency did its best for Sue. She was tried out in three different private homes, but would fit in none. After two years of constant expense to the society she was returned to her delinquent parents. Nineteen months of the next forty-eight (four years) she spent at county expense ($306) in the county home. Police court records of this period bear her name frequently. About 1916 the Salvation Army sent her to the Home in South Carolina. She ran away. In 1918, after a period of wandering, Sue was arrested in an army camp and sent to the United States Reformatory in Massachusetts. Seven hundred and forty-nine dollars and forty-five cents does not cover the expense in returning her to North Carolina in 1919 to the Caswell Training School. She has been there ever since at a cost of $900. Her annual expense will be around $300 as long as she lives. She is an attractive looking girl, but absolutely irresponsible.

Anne Wake (born 1899) and Bess (born 1902) have practically the same history. In 1910 they took the journey to the Children's Home Society with Sue and Tom. Each was tried out in foster homes, to the expense of the society and to the distress of the foster parents. After four years of patient trial they were sent to Caswell Training School. Bess's foster-mother said, “She's smart, but she has weak-minded spells.” Sex impulse developed early in her. Anne's foster-mother reports she “couldn't teach her anything.”

The girls were companions of Lyda Spruill, who set fire to the Caswell building. At this time they were sent to Dix Hill, where they stayed until March, 1922, when they were returned to Dr. McNairy. Up to the present time each is known to have cost the State around $2,500, and will continue to cost about $300 each, annually.

The authorities at Caswell see no hope of either girl's ever becoming a safe member of society at large.

Tom Wake (born 1905) went with his sisters in 1910 to the Children's Home Society. At five years old he seemed to be a normal child and was placed in a normal family. Within a year his mental condition became apparent. His foster parents kept him in school until he was fifteen. At this age, in spite of care and special teachers, they felt that his mental deficiency was so marked that he should be in a custodial institution. “He's stole and had no respect for himself or girls.” In 1920 South Carolina took him into her training school for the feebleminded. Here he will remain during his lifetime at a cost of around $250 a year.

Six hundred dollars is the expense for him up to the present time, exclusive of his cost to his foster parents for home care.

The last of the line is Jesse (born 1908). Some months after his birth a hearse returning from a funeral, on a rainy winter evening, found the mother, drunk in a ditch, with her baby on her breast. The water trickling down the bank would have drowned both in a short time. With the help of friends this child was taken to a foster home during one of Mary's frequent jail sentences. He is now fourteen years old and in the fifth grade. He cannot learn arithmetic or geography. He is a big, strong boy, but has evidently little initiative. So far it has not been possible to have a mental examination made, but his foster parents want it done.

So far his cost to society is negligible. Merely lodging, food and clothes in a good country home, but Jesse has had a different environment from his brothers and sisters. He has been protected since he was three years old.

This one family is on record as having cost not less than $9,068 to this and other states. The five members, now in institutions, will continue to cost $300 each per year indefinitely. No estimate can be made of the amounts contributed to them by individuals, associated charities, Salvation Army, and various churches. They kept no records. The organizations have memories, however, extending over long years, and all are glad that brick walls surround five of the Wake family.

Neither do these figures include Sam, the oldest. All confidential inquiries, state-wide in scope, have failed to secure any information about him. He is probably living from hand to mouth and propagating his kind.

The tragedy of this story is not so much the drunkenness and immorality this feebleminded family is responsible for, but the sheer waste—the lact of any sort of worth-while contribution to society. Twenty thousand dollars dropped, coin by coin, into a hole in the street would land the dropper in Dix Hill. Twenty thousand dollars or more has probably been as heedlessly poured out on this family.

Had Joe and Mary been refused a marriage license on the ground of feeblemindedness—as is done in a number of states—and sent to an institution, the State would have been spared much expense and trouble. Had they been rendered incapable of having children they could not have been more diseased than they are, and still society would have been spared a second generation of their kind.

Some consideration was due Joe and Mary themselves. Children cannot live up to the requirements of adult society. The Wake family is made up of children, mentally. Our juvenile court laws say no child under sixteen shall be tried as a criminal. Not one of the six members, so far examined, has shown a mental development of over nine years, yet three of them have figured extensively in police court records.

There is no reasonable doubt that the amount spent on this family since 1910 would have covered the $20,000 appropriation for the State Board of Charities and Public Welfare in 1922. Contrast the amount of constructive work reported in this Biennial Report—made possible by $20,000—with the economic value of the same amount spent on this family.